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Gold/Mining/Energy : Markatech - MKD (VSE) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rahim Bushiri who wrote (220)	4/28/1998 12:28:00 AM
From: BlueIce	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 416

Hi Rahim, I've been following the progress of their CD plant because it seems that's the closest to producing steady revenue. I like the CD plant because it's a "set up and run" project with a major customer already in place. There's no development life cycle involved. They only need to hire competent technicians to run the plant. As I've said earlier, I like the fact their major customer is part owner of the plant. This should ensure the plant is up and running as soon as possible so the customer can start saving money. I don't know much about Touchmaster except that they're selling it and there are a number of systems in place, especially in B.C. It's a competitor to the industry-leading Squirrel system. MKD says it's cheaper than Squirrel and better. I haven't played with either system, so I can't comment. I did read an investment newsletter published a couple of years ago that liked Touchmaster and said MKD could capture about 4% of the North American market share or something like that, which is enough to generate some nice income. $4 million went into the development of Touchmaster. I'll have to ask them what the latest news is for Touchmaster. As for Autonet, I understand that the beta testing is over and the software is finished. There was a significant period of testing in 1996 and 1997. The only thing left is to upgrade the hardware. The municipalities that buy these systems want the handheld units to last a few years and they didn't think the original units could withstand the physical wear and tear. During the current financing for the CD plant, part of the funds are going towards this development. Let's hope this is the final phase. They have a couple of interested buyers already and it's just a matter of demonstrating the new handheld units (after development is finished), finalizing contract details and getting the funds to start the projects. I was told they need a sum of money (that they didn't have before the financing) to buy all the hardware. There's a bit of a delay (such as 90 days) between when they have to pay for the hardware and when they reach a partial payment milestone from the customer.