Posted by Yehoram on March 13, 2000 at 19:49:24:
In Reply to: Thanks! Could you clarify some previous news releases concerning DSPC centers? posted by Richard on March 13, 2000 at 00:18:03:
: Care to comment on this news release?
sure,
Richard,
In general I would like to emphasize that it is imperative for deployed centers to be success. Soligen is very careful to verify that prior to deployment of equipment, the volume of business and the competency of the potential partner must be attained.
1. CTTM is indeed operating a single DSPC machine in France. CTTM is a technical school, and thus far achieved competency in operating the DSPC equipment but has not developed a market for deploying a fully operating center. When the program started with CTTM, metal prototyping was a major product. Since than the market has developed into more integrated solutions of which the metal prototypes is only a minor part of. You can clearly see this trend in the product mix of Soligen's revenue. CTTM, being a university has not developed the resources to provide a turn key solution. Recently the team at CTTM has prepared a spin off plan that will transfer the unit and the team to a commercialized start-up. We (Soligen) will have to decide soon if they have the resources and the talent to convert this effort into a fully operating center. The DSPC machine is owned by Soligen and is operating under a license agreement with CTTM. I will be going to France in the near future and will make a decision about the future of this venture.
2. Shonan Design, in Japan has never progressed beyond being a sales representative. Their main setback was the decline in Nissan and the migration of designs from Japan to the US development centers of Honda and Toyota. Soligen is not ready to invest in Japan, or deploy equipment without guaranteed volume of business.
3. The relationship with Wright-K is developing nicely and we have an increasing volume of business together, and several success stories. We are looking to expand the level of cooperation between Wright-K and Soligen. The actual deployment of DSPC will be scheduled to make sure that it is profitable for both Soligen and Wright-K.
We do have plans to open more centers but there is no reason to make these plans public at this point. The news releases that you relate to, were issued to disclose agreements that at that time had significance to the volume of business that we had, and thus required disclosure. Soligen today is much larger than it was 4 years ago and similar programs are no longer considered as disclosure requirements.
Yehoram