RE: Solars Website Still UpLast I heard was that tech7 is still operational and profitable.
Basically, Solarnet, Tourtek (in the incompetent hands of Andrew O'leary) and Vivo are not operational, no customers and probably no staff.
Tech7 is still handicapped with an ageing product and long term future is not good unless they aquire / develop a new system to upgrade their existing customers to and can use to get new customers.
SCS have been unable to do that becuase essentially they have had no money for any significant delivery / development since August 2003. Definitely the cause of the Vivo failure and certainly a part of the TT/SB failure, along with inability of Vancouver to manage such projects from a distance. Vancouver lack the technical and market knowledge to manage sofwtare projects period, distance just compunded the issues.
Nothing has changed since end of 2003, they are still doomed without a good project plan to develop and market 1 product, and the money (financing) and staff to see it through to success. Apart from finding Vivo, they have just wasted 2+ years trying to get by with no fianacing.
There are still a lot of people with a lot of money locked up in shares in the company, they might just fund such a project.
My only advice to them is, ensure the Plan is well researched, well costed, realistic, includes risks, frequent reporting milestones, pert, gant and cashflow. Ensure also that you have the right people ONSITE overseeing it's implementation and reporting back to board and shareholders.
There is still an opportunity here, Vivo showed good promise, but was appallingly underfunded and managed from Vancover (in no small part becuase they had no money and no shareholder support), but if a plan does not meet these criteria (and others I am sure I have missed out), it may be better to take the loss and walk away.
I certainly wouldn't consider reinvesting unless I saw such a plan and a new and more suitable BOD. I have seen previous ones over the years and they were typically ill researched, largely unplanned and incomplete, little more than a description of of the market opportunity and sometimes (usually not) a cashflow forecast with numbers pulled out of the air with no justification.
Comments like;
- 1 TT sale / month @ $250K each!!!
- 6 TT/SB live by xmas 2003
- 40 tech7 customers converted to TT/SB in 4 months, no 30, no 20,
- 1 Vivo client live a week!
I rubbished most of the above but even my 'more realistic' numbers proved more than optimistic, I had no idea of just how badly managed TT and Vivo were until we started to see loss of key staff like John Ford in Markham.
I have no idea what will happen next. I suspect either a rescue or voluntary liquidation. Shareholders like to get nothing with the latter, there is little value left in the company. It's only assets is a functioning sofware house in Portland and Vivo. Neither would fetch enough to cover debts on the open market.