TALL as always, one's DD should include everything, including Bob Davis.... despite him.. I bought at .595 and we shall see what we shall see.
Bob says "As a result, it is clear that the company needs to make a number of similar-sized sales each quarter before it will even begin to approach breakeven."
Of course they do, and if they make much larger sales, each quarter??
By: susi99 $$$$
Reply To: None Saturday, 30 Sep 2000 at 5:52 PM EDT
Post # of 50396
Company Profile
IVP Technology Corporation, incorporated in 1994 in the state of Nevada, is a holding company dedicated to rapidly building shareholder value through the identification and acquisition of private companies (and/or their technologies) in the high technology field that meet specific investment criteria, specifically:
operating companies must have strong income statements that reflect efficient marketing of the firm’s product or service;
acquisition candidates must have a strong and experienced management team that is prepared to make a long-term commitment to the company, and a viable business plan built around a timely product line with and definable market; and
every potential acquisition must demonstrate strong growth potential that will be accelerated by the infusion of capital and management expertise made available by IVP.
As its first major endeavor, IVP has a 3 year, extendible, software distribution agreement with Orchestral Corporation, a private Canadian software and system developer, granting IVP the American marketing rights to Orchestral’s PowerAudit software. IVP also has an agreement in principle to market PowerAudit in Europe. A multinational corporation involved in the production and distribution of consumer packaged goods is currently using PowerAudit in Canada.
The Company’s mission is to become a leading software distribution company, respected throughout the marketplace as a firm dedicated to offering quality business solutions and unparalleled customer service.
Photos from IVP Technology 300, 54 Village Center Place Mississauga, Ontario, Canada L4Z 1V9. Tel: +1 (905) 306-9343. Fax: +1 (905) 277-9506
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PowerAudit – The Next Generation
PowerAudit is a market-intelligence software product designed to provide a platform for remote data collection, with multiple applications. PowerAudit software utilizes the Internet in its communication and delivery architecture, and Microsoft Windows CE operating system software on handheld computers, to facilitate its remote data collection. PowerAudit can be customized to any industry that requires surveys, remote database interaction, sales and field force automation and mobile computing.
The product is ideal for companies that have many products in the marketplace, to get a quick turnaround time on their market research and to gain a decisive advantage over their competitors. PowerAudit offers the fastest data reporting available today. The faster a company can determine how its product lines are faring, the faster they can respond in terms of pricing and/or product positioning. In highly competitive industries, where margins are relatively slim, any edge a company can get is extremely important. PowerAudit provides this edge.
PowerAudit consists of two parts: the server software and the handheld software called the "client". PowerAudit sits on top of a company’s main database and is installed on a handheld PC each Handheld PC ("HPC") is a different "user". Survey questions are created through the server’s main program. PowerAudit is task oriented. Each user is given a task, usually a survey of questions. The questions can be as varied as the imagination can develop them. Each question is assigned a range of possible answers such as yes/no, scale, number, text, or select. Select simply means that the task organizer has given a series of customized possible answers to a question that the user would be able to choose from. The five answer categories allow for just about any kind of possibility. The task is then downloaded via the Internet onto the client HPC.
Following is an example of how PowerAudit works: a sales representative for a pharmaceutical company goes into a pharmacy to collect product data such as pricing, shelf positioning, percentage of product by category, shelf space etc. Carrying a handheld computer, he receives a series of questions from his supervisor. The questions are downloaded via the Internet onto his handheld PC and he checks off the appropriate answers. When his survey is completed, the data is uploaded via the Internet to the main database. Supervisors receive the data immediately.
In addition to the data transfer, PowerAudit allows customized reports to be generated for the supervisor, to analyze and to help facilitate decision-making. The supervisor can program PowerAudit to produce virtually any type of report he/she can conceive of: customized reports such as national or regional comparisons, shelf space comparisons by product in different cities, competitive pricing comparisons, etc.
PowerAudit uses a file transfer methodology such that a task can be changed at anytime. Unlike an embedded system, the client handhelds are, in essence, reprogrammed each time a task is downloaded.
The Handheld Computing Market
With the pending IPO of Palm, the handheld computing market has received a lot press in recent weeks. According to industry analysts, worldwide shipments of handheld computers like the Palm Pilot and Windows CE devices are tripling from fewer than five million units in 1997 to an estimated 15 million by 2001. 3Com’s Palm Pilot accounted for 41% of all 1998 handheld shipments. CE was second at 25%, while Psion’s Epoc32, a popular European platform, was third at 13%. By 2003, CE and Palm OS are expected to account for 92% of the world’s handheld market.
While Palm is the current market leader, Windows CE is being considered as the more powerful operating system. Palm Pilots have been popular as personal digital assistants. As technology improves, Windows CE has the ability to be a more reliable crossover system, compatible with laptops and database access. In the past, poor technology, low memory, lack of keyboards, and poor screens, have hindered compatibility.
The current slate of devices is gradually approaching the capabilities of some laptops. A new HPC Pro is like a notebook computer, only it is smaller, faster, less expensive, has a better battery life, requires less maintenance, and has all the necessary applications built in. Because of its similarity to Windows, Windows CE appears to be getting more attention from software vendors in terms of applications for reasons of platform compatibility. CE is expected to eventually overtake Palm Pilots because the Palm operating system is not compatible with many computer operating systems.
The increased popularity of handhelds, combined with vastly improved performance capabilities, has given IT managers some important decisions to make with respect to integration into their company’s IT environment. HPC makers are desperately trying to integrate HPCs into corporate systems. If large organizations adopt HPCs, thousands of individuals become new Windows CE end users. Many of these individuals will become dedicated users of the device and end up purchasing Windows CE devices themselves. As the user base grows, Microsoft and the HPC manufacturers have the financial resources to continue to improve the hardware, operating system, and built-in applications. Success also fuels the development of applications and hardware from independent developers.
PowerAudit is currently in use in Canada by a multinational processor and distributor of consumer packaged goods. PowerAudit is well suited to companies that have many products on store shelves. Pharmaceutical, food and beverage, manufacturing, sales and marketing companies with multiple brands are just a few areas where the Company’s product would make a big difference.
Since IVP’s target, end-user market is primarily companies that provide a wide range of products, the demographics certainly indicate continued market growth, especially in the middle and upper middle-class households that are so important a factor in the U.S. economy. American consumers have higher disposable incomes than in most parts of the world. Advertising and marketing play a great role in what those consumers purchase.
Trends in marketing in recent years have leaned more to target marketing of products and less on image advertising, where the impact of dollars spent is hard to quantify. Competition is fierce, and maintaining good margins is becoming increasingly difficult. Technology has played a big part in the ability of companies to target market their wares. PowerAudit goes one step further by allowing users to see the immediate impact of their efforts as opposed to the 4-6 weeks it generally takes now. PowerAudit users could see dramatic improvements to the bottom line as well as greatly improved efficiency in moving their products.
The Data Collection Market
Within the vast market of data collectors, which virtually includes every industry, acceptance is based on the need for rapid data collection and communication, at a good price. Currently, data gathering and reporting is performed by several methods:
Manual data gathering where representatives go out into the field, make notes, and either transmit the information to the office by telephone or upon return to the office.
Field representatives may have a laptop or notebook computer and can make notes, save them to a file, return to the office, and transfer file(s) to a desktop computer, which may or may not be connected to the company's main database.
Some proprietary systems developed by systems integrators allow data field representatives to record answers to pre-determined questions embedded on a laptop or handheld computer.
Large data service bureau organizations such as AC Nielson. Service bureaus do their own market-intelligence and data-collection, compile the data, and sell the information to those who need it.
The Company’s primary competition comes from proprietary systems for data collection. Large corporations generally use systems integrators to develop the necessary applications to improve efficiency, increase productivity and cut costs. These systems can cost millions of dollars to create, and then must be maintained, either by the corporation’s IT department or the systems integrator’s support staff. The solutions could also be cumbersome to use. When business conditions change upgrading a system or changing it will add to the cost. For remote data collection and market intelligence, proprietary systems have tended to use embedded handheld and laptop computers. There is limited flexibility as to how these units can be used. PowerAudit’s method of task management gives users the most flexible, customizable system available today, at a fraction of the cost.
Many corporations also purchase information from database service bureaus such as A.C Nielson, which collect market data in the field, process it and publish reports that are sent to the customer. This system of data collection can be effective, but the turnaround time to get a published report back to the customer is generally 4-6 weeks. In the fast paced world of consumer product competition, this is not always satisfactory. PowerAudit can generate a report to the customer within 24-48 hours. This is very significant for marketing managers in making pricing or positioning decisions.
PowerAudit Strategy
The Company’s strategy is to market to the HPC Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and Systems Integrators (SIs). Currently there are few business software applications dedicated to the Windows CE platform, and PowerAudit is an ideal application for OEMs to recommend to their device users. PowerAudit utilizes the Microsoft Windows CE operating system ("o/s"), which is expected to surpass the Palm Pilot as the o/s of choice in the next couple of years. At this time, OEMs have a tremendous need for software and are searching for any application that may help them to sell their HPCs. By marketing to the OEMs and SIs, these companies will, in effect, do a significant amount of IVP’s marketing. Through these channels, the Company will gain much greater credibility and quicker market penetration than by solely marketing to end users. Clearly, this is an extraordinary opportunity for IVP to position PowerAudit in this industry.
Concurrent with the above vertical market strategy, it is also necessary to market to end-users directly, since quick market penetration is crucial to the Company’s success. The following industries are ideal target markets:
Database Management Services Providers. IVP will position PowerAudit as a complimentary application that will enable these companies to provide faster market-intelligence reporting capability than they currently possess. It can take database service companies 4-6 weeks to process and distribute a market report. By sitting on top of their databases, PowerAudit can enable a reporting turnaround time of 24-48hours. IVP will endeavor to enter into strategic alliances with companies in this field.
Sales and Marketing Corporations. These are companies that provide outsourcing of sales and marketing services, and they span a variety of industries. Many of their employees are out in the field representing products of their client companies. They can benefit from PowerAudit's speed and productivity enhancing features such as customizable task management. When mobile workers use HPCs with PowerAudit installed, managers can change tasking instructions from the office. Currently, many systems utilize HPCs that have specific preprogrammed tasks embedded on them, thus limiting their effectiveness.
Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Product Companies. These industries have large sales forces in the field. PowerAudit allows supervisors the ability to monitor call reporting and market research activities. The Company also sees possibilities in the area of clinical trials where large numbers of patients are being monitored. Patients, supplied with HPCs, would have the capability of reporting symptoms, communicating concerns and gleaning information. Doctors conducting the trials would be able to track progress more efficiently and with more precision.
Future Products
Assuming its relationship with Orchestral continues to be satisfactory, IVP would naturally consider products that Orchestral has in development. In the Company’s agreement with Orchestral, a provision is being made to create a development fund with Orchestral that would give IVP first right of refusal for any new products developed by Orchestral. The directors of IVP would be negligent if they did not consider opportunities from other sources as well, however.
IVP is constantly searching for other products and has, at the present time, identified several possible acquisitions, including some that may compliment PowerAudit. The Company believes strongly that investment in products which involve the Internet is a positive direction to be focused.
Company Outlook
The success of the Company going forward is contingent on two primary factors: 1) the marriage of the handheld and corporate IT markets; and more specifically 2) the acceptance of HPCs for data collection and transfer. Should these two elements come to positive fruition, IVP stands as a company with a strategy with solid growth potential. With the recent announcement of the Palm IPO, the market could see renewed vigor for the HPC market. The Company’s projections indicate that it can achieve $1.3 million in revenues and net income of $40.5 thousand, or virtually breakeven, by the fiscal year ending September 2000. In fiscal 2002, IVP expects revenues of $7.0 million and net income of $3.2 million, or $0.06 per share (based on 50 million shares outstanding). Given the Company’s business model, these estimates could very well be conservative, as OEM sales could easily increase these figures dramatically. Overall, IVP presents an attractive investment opportunity at these price levels. |
