from w-w-bb:

19.01.2007 - Total Rocketscience

The third and final company making up our Risk / Reward trilogy on shares for 2007 has so many investment negatives that most observers might not even give it more than a cursory glance. Although quoted on the London AIM market, it is based on the other side of the World, has reported revenues and cash flow of diddly squat and, more importantly, operates in an area of expertise so deep in boffinland that you need to be at least a 5 star techie to venture anywhere near it.

What originally persuaded us to give it a second look was the fact that legendary Stockmarket investor, Jim Slater, was pouring money into it via several successive rounds of financing. As we all know, Mr. Slater is a qualified accountant and hugely experienced corporate financier but clearly he is more at home in leafy Surrey than in the technologically rarified atmosphere of Southern California. However, he must have gleaned enough about what the company actually did to get extremely excited about it. In fact, by last Autumn, he had grown to like it so much that, to paraphrase the immortal Victor Kiam, he bought the remaining 51 % of the company that his vehicle, Original Investments, didn't already own.

The company in question was VIALOGY and, ever since it was fully reversed into Original just before Christmas, Slater's loyal band of followers have seen their highly speculative penny punt move on to the calculated risk category and been duly rewarded with a 50% shareprice improvement. We first latched on to this situation last April when we wrote a piece entitled The Cisco Kid ( see news archive ). To recap briefly, the company was set up by some brainboxes who had earlier worked together on supercomputing projects for NASA. Led by Dr. Sandip Gulati, the team appeared to have perfected software to detect and enhance extremely weak signals previously obscured by background noise. This may not seem particularly earthshattering to the layman but, apparently, the applications for this technology are not only revolutionary but almost limitless which suggests that an exponential rise in licensing income could well lie ahead.

Big news clearly travels fast on the Eastern seaboard because global behemoths Cisco and Boeing have already enlisted Vialogy to work on 2 major government inspired projects and these are just the ones that the company have been allowed to talk about publicly. As we reported in April, Cisco has contracted Vialogy to help with its IPICS programme which seeks to make sure that all emergency services and government agencies can communicate with each other quickly via computers and phones. The need to address this obvious requirement was highlighted by 9 / 11 when communications between different departments with different systems proved chaotic.

For its part, Boeing has recently confirmed that Vialogy has delivered a tenfold improvement in the accuracy and efficiency of the types of gyroscopes it uses in spacecraft and missile navigational systems. It is also known that both Cisco and Boeing see a major role for the technology in such areas as border controls and missile defence systems. Elsewhere a much smaller Texan company, Evolution Petroleum, is applying the technology to improving seismic evaluation of oil and gas deposits.

This initial clutch of applications is almost certainly just the tip of a very large iceberg that is going to float into view over the next few years and all that is required is a little patience. At todays price of 5.5p, Vialogy is valued at a mere 22m. To justify this valuation, the company would have to be earning say 2 million pretax. With cash reserves of 3 million and its heavyweight partners funding the projects it is involved in, Vialogy should be able to get through to breakeven without further recourse to shareholders. We would expect this stage to be reached sometime over the next 12 months. Thereafter, profits could / should escalate very dramatically as new applications and licensing income start to snowball.

On a two year view, shareholders could be rewarded extremely handsomely indeed. Vialogy is in so many ways akin to last weeks selection, CORAC. Both are now moving from the development stage to commercialization with the scales tipping away from blue sky risk towards the reality of cash flow. Both have mindblowing upside potential yet both have current shareprice action that makes drying paint look positively orgasmic. Although this presents an opportunity for latecomers, it is a frustrating byproduct of both companies involvement with highly sensitive technology and powerful, publicity shy partners. Moreover, the present lack of any meaningful numbers together with the sheer scale of future potential makes any serious stockbroker research well nigh impossible. All this will resolve itself in due course but, as they say in the Grolsch advert, all good things come to those who wait.

a new set to follow next late august b/h if you can wait that long .... failing that, may give you a half-term treat in late june!

Make it more enjoyable......and get a size smaller.........;0)

VIY is flying...... well for VIY this is flying, and no one has commented... come on get excited your all in profit.......surely.

even i am - just! .... though i'm not sure if that takes inflation into account

It must be the V influence (VGM VIY!?)

I'm level....I'm hoping this is going to keep going.....I still can't believe that EK is still shorting this.

By the way, what's this ridiculous spread...three quarters of a penny ? how is one expected to make a profit ?...times are hard.... "sigh" !....

and as it's an MM stock only, it's effectively impossible to work an order inside

Well, you can thank me for the sp rise; I sold part of my holding yesterday. The sp always goes up after I sell :o(

Still, I made a profit :o)

Still rising towards the close, news coming?

http://www.investorschronicle.co.uk/Tips/Buy/MiniTips/article/20100106/c04cdc4c-fa21-11de-8fd9-00144f2af8e8/2010-may-prove-ViaLogys-technology.jsp

This might jump up quite a bit if they now announce another success with their quantum technique....10p is now very very possible or it might remain around this mark.....I think that 10p is more probable !.

.

London, January 21, 2010, ViaLogy PLC (LSE: VIY). ViaLogy announces that, under contract to its client Fasken Oil and Ranch, Ltd. of Midland, Texas, the first successful well has been drilled and is in the process of being completed on their Andrews County prospect. The leading privately-held Exploration and Production company agreed to collaborate with ViaLogy to use its proprietary technology, QuantumRD, to analyze 3-D and multi-component seismic data, well logs and geological records to locate well sites in a 10 square mile Permian Basin acreage block.

Drilling at the ViaLogy-designated location took three weeks and reached a prescribed total depth of 11,241 feet. Initial well log analysis shows potential for multiple zones that could be high-graded, highlighted by a net interval of over 50' feet of significant porosity in the Strawn formation alone. Strawn limestone porosities are typically very low. For this formation to be economically viable porosity must reach at least 4%. One of ViaLogy's key challenges was to locate this porosity and to quantify its aerial extent. Strawn targets are typically found at depths greater than 9000 feet and with 3% porosities or less are deemed non-productive. The QuantumRD technology succeeded in locating large continuous zones of 6% plus porosity, a major achievement. Detailed volumetrics will be computed in the near-term.

All the more significant is the fact that over the last 50 years only three of 18 attempted Strawn wells in the prospect area showed production. Of the 15 remaining, seven were completed to produce oil from shallower zones in the Wolfcamp formations, no porosity having been found in the Strawn. Eight were declared as dry holes. Additionally, preliminary work shows that the ViaLogy technology can increase the ability to detect hydrocarbon presence directly using seismic data to accurately characterize Wolfcamp carbonates.

Participating in the Fasken prospect analysis as an advisor is Dr. Bob Hardage of the University of Texas' Bureau of Economic Geology (UT BEG), widely acknowledged as one of America's leading technology centers for hydrocarbon exploration.

Reviewing the drilling results, Dr. Hardage commented, "The prediction of a higher porosity zone within the Strawn is impressive and appears to validate the advantages of the weak signal processing capability underlying QuantumRD to see subtle changes in the data. Porosity variations in Strawn stratigraphy are difficult to amplify using conventional geophysical processing." Despite advances in 3D seismic acquisition and processing, the exploration industry has faced a major challenge in characterizing porosity in complex stratigraphic formations known to exhibit fracture and structural changes below acquisition resolution.

According to the client firm's Chief Geophysicist, "We are impressed by the accuracy of ViaLogy's predictions, and especially pleased with QuantumRD's capability to use seismic data to accurately detect porosity zones within the Strawn formation. This was a very difficult problem. Significant undeveloped acreage still exists in the Midland Basin. The introduction of a technology that can characterize porosity in deeper carbonate intervals could make a substantial difference."

He added, "This well demonstrated to us QuantumRD's potential to determine drilling locations based on our exploration criteria. We look forward to working closely with ViaLogy to discover and develop deeper formations on our acreage including the Strawn, Devonian, and Ellenburger"

not used to running a profit in these .... i'll get vertigo!

I can feel another holiday coming out of this one......

Great, so you're all going to sell & the sp will be back to the basement again? ;o)

no no no, out of later profits harry.....calm down, it's only a commercial...lol

Looks good for 10p plus and possibly more as we progress into the year.

reckon BB must take a pup tent and primus and camp on dartmoor if he reckons he'll get a hol out of these