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Technology Stocks : Seac - Seachange New IPO -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: caveat who wrote (352)	12/20/1999 12:25:00 PM
From: PeterBurgess	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 431

Western Cable Show Dec 16 The show was bigger than ever, and with more and more vendors providing digital solutions I barely covered the ground in 6.5 hours. No real suprises. ITV was a big theme, particularly with interactive advertising. Everyone expects Y2000 to the kickoff year for ITV. Lots of big grins. Video Server vendors: Majors = Seachange, Concurrent/Vivid, Diva, nCube Minor offerings = Vela, Unisys, Zenith/IBM, What video server vendors will be present next year? Do Diva and nCube have sufficient capital to continue alone? Diva Systems -- sec.gov ? Through September 30, 1999, the Company has generated minimal revenues, has incurred significant losses and has substantial negative cash flow, primarily due to the engineering and development and start-up costs required to develop its VOD service. Since inception through September 30, 1999, the Company had an accumulated deficit of $266.9 million. The Company currently intends to increase its operating expenses and its capital expenditures in order to continue to deploy, develop and market its VOD products and services. * As a result, the Company expects to incur substantial additional net losses and negative cash flow for at least the next several years.* ?. Its $250,000,000 of high-yield debt might be a barrier to an acquirer. Good demo of their itv system. Good user interface and customer subscription offerrings Like preset budget expenditures for individual family members, special deals for kids during the day, etc. Unattractive business model (revenue split with MSOs rather than equipment sales), And proprietary hardware solution are both negatives. nCube ? purchased by Larry Ellison (Oracle founder) in 1998. In 1999 nCube purchased SkyConnect, a digital ad insertion company. NCube is a private company with no SEC filings, so the financial picture Is not transparent. I have no idea of their health and viability. SkyConnect is focussing mostly on small MSOs and international sites for new sales. NCube claims to be Pegasus compliant and expect to sign trials with TWX. Concurrent/Vivid Had a large, much improved combined booth and presence in SFA and GI booths and probably others (maybe Intertainer?). A series of interesting press announcements ? broadcast pause and resume capability, Vivid-Comcast trial, Partner with Encore Media and Excite@Home. SeaChange Large booth with lots of sales folks. Being located next to the SFA booth was certainly a bonus. More show presence than ever before. With your registration you received a badge and a directory booklet containing the vendors and booth # and maps. SeaChange had the full back outside cover advertisement for the directory ? so everyone was waving a SeaChange banner! Also lots of full page ads in the magazines distributed at the show. SeaChange?s strong cash flow allows management to outspend its competitors in R&D and sales and marketting. Multichannel news had a article on inserting ads into digital streams (also vBits intergration announcements earlier). SeaChange interoperability and vendor relationships and standards were seen in the CableLabs booth (interactive advertising with ITV), SFA, GI, And others. Liberate, MoreCom, WorldGate, Wink etc are naturally partnering with Seachange (VOD leader and digital ad insertion (80% world market share)) to provide both VOD and interactive advertising. As the internet web site revenues were fueled by banner ads to provide free/low-cost information, the MSOs hope to garner substantial new revenue. Eg Click on a Porsche ad and schedule a time and place for your test drive. Seachange can leverage its strength in both VOD and ad insertion to assemble an integrated value-chain of other vendors pushing for ITV and interactive advertising. Buckle up, year 2000 promises to be stage 1 for the ITV rocket.