Robert, the first sale to Metrocall IS a done deal. I believe we can expect to hear the Metrocall future plans shortly, perhaps by June.
You can find the financial info along with additional data posted at SEDAR. A lot of interesting data can be found in the Company's May 7th 1999 Annual Information Form.
Here are some AIF excerpts like “The First Sale” and the unfolding of it's marketing plan. In the AIF there is a $5M offering (IPO?)listed which depends on the reception Dr. Bean gets...
Kris
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..... The Company has entered into an Evaluation to Purchase Agreement dated April 12, 1999 with Metrocall, a telephone paging company headquartered in Alexandria Virginia, to supply the first installation of Dr. Bean. Pursuant to the Evaluation to Purchase Agreement, Metrocall has agreed to purchase Dr. Bean, an IBM Netfinity Hardware Server, the Windows NT operating system, and the IBM “UBD2” data base for a total price of US$15,325. As the first purchaser of Dr. Bean, Metrocall was given a 50% discount on the software component of the price.
As commercial distribution of Dr. Bean has only commenced, the Company is still in the process of attempting to identify and develop suitable distribution channels for Dr. Bean. The Company expects to market Dr. Bean principally through the following channels.
Product Sales
The Company will attempt to market Dr. Bean to strategic clients capable of generating a large volume of e-commerce sales revenue. If the Company is able to attract clients of this nature, the result will be to generate market exposure for Dr. Bean through the clients' web sites.
In September 1998, the Company entered into an Alliance Agreement with Science Applications International Corp. (“SAIC”) pursuant to which the Company and SAIC agreed to cooperate in the development and marketing of e-commerce business solutions. SAIC is one of the largest systems integrators in the United States, with over 30,000 employees.
At the present time, two marketing efforts are under way through the Alliance Agreement:
(a) Dr. Bean is on display in the e-commerce laboratory of SAIC in MacLean, Virginia, where it is being examined by potential customers; and
(b) SAIC is attempting to have Dr. Bean included in its General Services Agreement with the US government.
Otherwise, it is the intention of the Company and SAIC to develop and implement specific marketing initiatives and strategies as marketing opportunities materialize.
Under the terms of the Alliance Agreement, the Company and SAIC have agreed to cooperate in the development of marketing materials, with such marketing materials to be funded by, and owned jointly by, the parties on a 50:50 basis. The parties have also agreed that any intellectual property developed by the parties pursuant to the Alliance Agreement will be owned by them jointly. SAIC is not required to provide any other funding under the Alliance Agreement, and will acquire no intellectual property rights in the Company's software. The term of the Alliance Agreement is one year, after which the Alliance Agreement is subject to review and renegotiation.
The Company will attempt to establish distribution channels for Dr. Bean through the Alliance Agreement, and through the system integration services offered by SAIC.
In addition, the Company will attempt to negotiate with major participants in the market for e-business software (such as IBM, Sun Microsystems or Oracle) with a view to obtaining either a bundling agreement for Dr. Bean or an agreement for joint promotion of Dr. Bean. Through such an agreement, the Company will attempt to establish distribution channels for Dr. Bean involving value added resellers (“VAR's”) of e-commerce software products. While the Company will endeavour to negotiate such an agreement, there can be no assurance that such an agreement can be successfully concluded.
Solution Sales
The Company will also attempt to market Dr. Bean directly to end users as part of a program of providing integrated e-commerce solutions directly to corporate clients. In addition to Dr. Bean, solutions provided by the Company will include software, middleware and hardware to support a comprehensive range of e-commerce services, such as database creation and management, transaction servers (processing purchase orders, credit card sales and other transactions), system security programs, and financial management and accounting systems.
In anticipation of commencing to market e-commerce solutions incorporating Dr. Bean, the Company has taken the following steps:
(a) In July 1998, the Company was accepted into the IBM Business Partner Reseller program, permitting the Company to market IBM hardware products.
(b) In August 1998, the Company received authorization from IBM to market its Axapta software.
(c) In September 1998, the Company achieved advanced status in the IBM Business Enterprise Solutions Team (“BESTeam”) program, permitting the Company to market IBM e-commerce software.
As Dr. Bean has recently been released for commercial distribution, the Company's current pricing schedule for Dr. Bean is preliminary, and may change depending on market response.
The Company presently plans to sell the Dr. Bean server for US$10,000 for a basic installation allowing for five simultaneous client connections. Additional connections will cost US$1,000 each for the first 50, with the cost per connection decreasing above 50. The Company also expects that its pricing schedule will be adapted to include prices for additional connections and for packages to make Dr. Bean compatible with other e-commerce software such as Net.Commerce or Axapta of IBM.
(iii) Dr. Bean - Competitive Position
Software to facilitate Internet commerce is an emerging field, and several companies have recently released products which perform functions similar to those of Dr. Bean. The principal competing products of which the Company is aware include the following: WebCenter 2 (Aquity of Austin, Tx.), Sixth Sense Web 1.0 (Davox Corp. of Richardson, Tx.), EService 98 (Silknet of Manchester, NH), Interaction Web (Interactive Intelligence of Indianapolis, In.), iContact (Contact Dynamics of Chicago, Il.), LiveContact (Balisoft Technologies of Toronto, Ont.), @OnceExpress (Business Evolution of Princeton, NJ), and NetAgent (eShare Technologies, of Commack, NY.). Most or all of these products support some form of direct Internet communication between customers and customer service representatives. The Company is not yet in a position to provide a reliable assessment of how well Dr. Bean will be able to compete against these or other new products.
(iv) Dr. Bean - Future Developments
(v) The Company is presently in the course of developing Dr. Bean version 1.1, which the Company expects to release at approximately the end of May 1999. Dr. Bean version 1.1 will include the following principal enhancements:
(a) Version 1.1 will be compatible with version 1.2 of the Java Development Kit;
(b) Version 1.1 will permit customer service representatives using Dr. Bean to monitor the activities of other customer service representatives; and
© Version 1.1 will include features to make Dr. Bean more easily adaptable to particular customer installations.
Version 1.1 will be essentially an upgrade of version 1.0, and the Company expects that it will be able to complete development of version 1.1 with its existing personnel.
The Company has also commenced design work for Dr. Bean, version 2.0. The Company expects that version 2.0 will be a substantial upgrade of version 1.0, and will incorporate the following additional features:
(a) Version 2.0 is expected to have “enterprise wide” capability, incorporating scalable architecture, permitting a virtually unlimited number of connections; and
(b) Version 2.0 will incorporate call centre integration, supporting communication through the internet and conventional telephone services simultaneously.
The design of version 2.0 is at a preliminary stage, with the result that the Company is not able to provide a reliable completion schedule, or a reliable estimate of the cost or manpower requirements. |
