Visix Corporate

Current Corporate Performance

Sean Matthews — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 14:15:00 GMT

We performed well in the first six months of 2008.Even though we are privately held, I have no problem disclosing some of our results. Below you will find a few key comparisons between Q2 ’07 and Q2 ’08 and comments where applicable.

Key financial results:

·         Revenues up by 44%
·         Inbound orders up by 22%
·         Net income was down, but still positive. As part of our five year plan, 2008 is dedicated to the addition of new developers and technical personnel. These talented people are expensive, but important investments. Additionally, we spent approximately $60,000 more on our tradeshow presence at Infocomm this year compared to the previous year.
·         DSO (Receivables) down by 26%
·         COGS are up by 9%. I contribute this to the overall rising cost of PCs associated with our products. These devices are affected by broader economic influences.

Key Volume Indicators:

·         Player unit volume up by more than 60%
·         Server unit volume up by 22%. We are increasing the ratio of players to servers (larger deployments).
·         Training sessions delivered up by 148%. This is a concerted effort to improve the quality and quantity of training we deliver.
·         Implementations up by 92%. There is a direct correlation between the number of servers we ship and the number of implementations we support. Even though more than 96% of our systems are sold through a channel, an overwhelming number of partners rely on Visix to provide implementation services. The reliance stems from general networking complexities.

Technical Support Indicators:

·         Total number of support tickets handled up by 38%. Again, there is a correlation between the number of systems we deploy and the number of trouble tickets we handle.
·         Number of tickets resolved in less than 24 hours is up by more than 41%. We continue to refine our response processes and improve the time to resolution.
·         Average WebEx support session is down by 33%. This reinforces the previous statement that we are both improving our time to resolution and improving the quality of our software releases.

We will continue our organic growth at these same rates through 2010 when we will evaluate alternative growth strategies.

I will keep you posted.

What are they talking about?

Sean Matthews — Tue, 27 May 2008 20:03:00 GMT

I continue to read claims by our competitors regarding the size of their organizations, market share, number of deployments and more. Don't believe everything you read. Almost none of these claims can be backed with any level of factual support.

Here are some recent claims:

Number One: Posted in the "About Scala" section of a recent (4/30/2008) press release Scala states, "Founded in 1987, Scala pioneered the Digital Signage industry and today remains the world's largest provider of software for creating digital signage networks, driving more screens than all competitors combined." They appear to find support in this claim by pointing to a Frost and Sullivan report that was paraphrased in a 1/16/2008 press release staing that "Scala continues to solidify its position as the global leader in the digital signage industry with the recent market report "World Digital Signage Markets" by leading research firm Frost & Sullivan, finding that Scala commands more than 35% of the worldwide Digital Signage software market."

How much does it cost to commission Frost & Sullivan to conduct research stating that you command 35% of a worldwide market? Does Frost & Sullivan know that Scala reported it's 2006 sales revenues to Inc. Magazine at just over $10 million? That logic would infer that the entire digital signage software market in 2006 was approximately $29 million. In the same year, the only other digital signage company to be recognized by Inc. Magazine, Visix, reported $3.7 million in revenues. This leaves only $25.3 million for the rest of the industry. In 2007, Visix reported $4.6 million to Scala's $14+ million. In 2008, Visix is projecting $6.0 million. Quit getting sucked into the hype.

I could talk all day long about the 150+ companies listed as software providers on digitalsignageuniverse.com, but it is a useless exercise since more than 95% are privately held. The one's that are public are wrapped in companies where digital signage is not the priority - AMX, Cisco, Planar and Thompson are great examples. Their digital signage revenues are pennies on the dollar. The one pure public digital signage company that I can note is Wireless Ronin who posted $1.6 million in revenues in Q2 and $5 million in losses.

Yes, the digital signage space is a growing market, but I would like to see a reduction in the overly-hyped conversations associated with the market. I think the pointless chest pounding is misleading and adversely impacts prospective buyers, users, integrators and the public at large. I welcome an objective conversation.

The Challenge of Growth

Sean Matthews — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 21:39:00 GMT

Visix grew by 136% over the past three years. Though the growth is exciting, it brings a litany of challenges.

Volume is the most obvious. We experienced double digit growth in the number of systems shipped and triple digit growth in the volume of services delivered. Delivering both the products and services over the past 12 months was relatively manageable, but supporting the deployments after the fact has been much more challenging. We took all the traditional steps like implementing new processes, deploying new technologies and refining our offering. In the end, however, it boiled down to adding people.

We added 11 people in the second half of the year with nearly 50% going to support the help desk. Our Channel Player to Server ratio doubled when compared to the previous year and we underestimated the people it would take to support the ratio shift. Compounding our challenge were the continual improvements in network security making it more difficult to support Web applications, proxy access and updates.

Today, every one of our help desk representatives has four to six months of AxisTV time and experience. As a result, we are looking forward to a more rewarding customer service year. We expect to grow and train our staff to meet the expanding demand for our software around the world.

While we will continue to improve the service and support experience, 2008 is the year of development at Visix. We are making notable investments in software developers, UX developers and new products to propel our offering to the next level of functionality and sophistication. We are looking forward to another solid year of growth performance and improvements across the board.