I think they/we will be with a $9M deal with a Japtelco

M

pach
snappy was saying this wasn't worth 6p a year ago if you say the same thing long enough you are bound to be right some of the time.
I do find it tiresome that people do not understand the mechanics of this deal and state that when the shares get issued who is going to buy them. The chances of 90m shares initially being sold if the deal is voted through is highly unlikely as there will be a lock out period of at least 6 months but most probably 2 years imo and if Tad keep on doing the deals they have been doing for ETI recently we will look back and say this was unbelievably cheap today, imo.
One only has to look what MCI are saying about ETI to realise how good the MCI deal is and when that feeds through to the bottom line in the finals we will never see these prices again

Tadpole Technology (TAD) Add (unchanged)
Mkt cap: 54m Net cash: 0m Trading update Price/Target: 18p/20p
Microsoft adopts AppExpress technology
Investors have long believed that Microsoft would eventually adopt TADs
innovative peer-to-peer technology and today that contract has finally been
signed; an excellent endorsement of the product.
Microsoft will use Tadpoles AppExpress applications to stream trial
versions of consumer software products to potential new customers over the
Internet. However it must be pointed out that the initial value of the contract
is based upon customer usage of the software, up to an amount of just
$100,000. Nevertheless this is an impressive endorsement of the product. The
road to this deal was paved last November when the Endeavors division
which develops AppExpress achieved Gold Certified Partner status with
Microsoft.
AppExpress enables the rapid deployment of software to desktops while
providing strong licence management control, vital with the levels of piracy
now threatening Independent Software Vendors (ISVs). AppExpress has
proven successful as a trialware solution as well by allowing those ISVs to
run full-product try-before-buy campaigns that have the added advantage of
monitoring application usage and anti-piracy controls.
Microsoft joins another large US software supplier, Autodesk, as champions
of Tadpoles on-demand technology. For over a year, potential customers
have been able to log on to servers of Autodesk in the US and receive full
versions of AutoCAD 2005 trialware to their desktops, powered by
AppExpress on-demand delivery technology. Following this success, in
April this was extended to Autodesk subsidiaries in Europe, the Middle East
and Africa.
AppExpress is now showing itself to be a sound and repeatable model for
ISVs looking for a piracy-free, trackable solution of putting full product
software in the hands of prospects in the shortest time. It reduces evaluation
software costs by eliminating the process of burning and shipping trialware
CD-ROMs to customers. For example, Autodesk has estimated savings of up
to $10 per unit by cutting the physical medium out of its business process.
With two industry giants, Microsoft and Autodesk, now using it we expect
many other ISVs will follow suit and the chances of it become an industrystandard
method of trialware delivery are much increased. On that basis,
although we stress that these are yet early days for Endeavors, we believe
there is good potential in AppExpress and are maintaining our Add
recommendation.
$100,000 contract
Thumbnail of AppExpress
Previous AppExpress champion was
Autodesk
Benefits of AppExpress
TADPOLE TECHNOLOGY
FROM 16/6/03 TO 16/6/04 DAILY
JUN JUL AUG SEP OCT NOV DEC JAN FEB MAR APR MAY JUN
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
22
24
26
HIGH 25. 75 2 6/ 1 /04 LOW 7 .25 19/ 6/03 LAS T 18 .25 Source: DATASTREAM

Yuff - I realise that Snappy has been negative about Tad for 2years but perhaps he has always been right and the rest of the market is catching up to his assessment. Tad just cannot produce high-earning deals. They keep promising but do not deliver. We are always turning the corner, always getting the basics right, producing a sound platform for future expansion, and other clap-trap. I beginning to get a little bit annoyed.

http://www.softwareceo.com/index.php
Headed up - TIP OF THE WEEK

A logical middle road for delivering demos
In our April 13, 2004, Tip of the Week, we told you about technology from a company called Surgient that provides for hosted demos of complex software apps.

Here's another approach to the same problem, with some innovative twists that will appeal to software marketers.

Endeavors Technology, a developer based in Irvine, Calif., will also put your software on their server for demo purposes, but, unlike Surgient, it doesn't run there.

"We actually stream down the product as it's needed," says Joe Anzenberger, Endeavor's marketing VP. "The title is on a server, and when a person registers, they download just enough of the software as needed.

"So, you're using the desktop PC rather than the server. We've found that performance is really limited by bandwidth rather than processing. If an application is slow, it will be slow even if they're running off a disk."

Your software is streamed to a virtual drive on the user's PC, and stored in an encrypted cache area with links to several points on the client machine. "Even if you made a copy of the cache and tried to move it to another machine, it wouldn't work," Anzenberger says.

"AutoDesk is one of our customers, and in the nearly two years they've been working with us they've not reported a single case of piracy."

Each software vendor determines whether or not they want to enable offline use via the Endeavors technology, as well as the amount of timefrom hours to yearsthat the user will be able to run it.

This offline capability offers an obvious advantage to users who want to try out your software without being connected to the Internet. And, unlike software demos on physical media, Endeavors can provide feedback.

"We install our own thin client on the user's PC," Anzenberger says. "When the person comes back online, as soon as they're Web connected again, it relays information back to the vendor.

"It tells them how many times they've run the software and what they've done with it. This is really what separates us from the competition: We give you a way of knowing what's happening, which in turn gives you better lead follow-up."

Because your software is not running on remote servers, Endeavors also claims the ability to handle far more concurrent usersup to 5,000 concurrently, says Anzenberger. "We've actually run tests and found that it will scale to 10,000 users," he says, "but for the sake of efficiency, we like to limit it to 5,000 users per server."

Support issues have been minimal, Anzenberger says: When 8,000 users downloaded an AutoDesk demo over a six-month period, only 1.3 percent called for technical support.

Most commonly, the problem resides, as we say in software circles, between the user's chair and monitor. "Sometimes it's a network issueif they're running a double firewall it can be difficultbut most of the time it was just a user error," says Anzenberger.

The cost of the Endeavors service is negotiated, but Anzenberger says the range is $1 to $4 per download. "It depends on the size of the application and the number of users. Complexity will drive it up, and number of users will drive it down."

If your software is small and uncomplicated and you have a small number of users, an online demo capability like Endeavor's may not be cost effective for you. But if either your software or user base are large, it could pay off.

"Lots of developers send out CDs, and we know they spend $5 to $10 per user if the demo's on physical media," Anzenberger says. "Or, they have a full download on their site at minimal cost, but they have no idea of who's using it, and no way of following up. We try to set our price somewhere in the middle."

Online operating ratios survey coming soon
We know it's dangerous to follow the Microsoft standard of pitching products before they're ready, but this one's exciting enough that we can't resist.

In one month, SoftwareCEO will launch an online Operating Ratios survey. Our Site Members will be able to login to our private survey, created by our partners at KeySurvey, to answer 20 quick demographic questions and fill out an income statement for your company.

Then, at the end, you'll have the option to have the results mailed to you. Choose yes, and we'll send you:

Your responses, in an HTML view;
A Web-based compilation of all responses, with medians and means and numbers of responses for each question; and
A link to an Excel-based download, so you can crunch all the numbers on your own PC.
The meaty portion of this survey is the financial statement: On that page, you'll be able to see the percentage of revenues that other software companies spend on 10 different line items, from admin to R&D to sales commissions, as well as their shareholder distributions and profit margin.

Stay tunedthis is going to be a terrific resource for anyone trying to build budgets for a software company.

###

pach
Rome wasn't built in a day, ETI's performance this year has been very good although this has not reached the bottom line yet but should be bearing fruit by the finals.
The ST deal has given the bears the perfect oppurtunity to short the share whilst we await details, it isn't a done deal yet and I for one want to see how ETI are getting on before I vote on the deal, I also want to see what this contract stream has got and what it's potential is.
Tad have a lkot of work to do if they want this deal to go through and a share price around 12p at the EGM won't help, so imo they need to get it higher.

From today's shares mag.

TADPOLE TECHNOLOGY
(TAD) 15.75p
BRAVE HOLD
Tadpole was tipped at 12.5p in
January. It raced to 25p in anticipation
of a flood of great news.
In true Tadpole fashion the flood turned out to be only a
trickle, though MCI was eventually
confirmed as the telco using
Tadpoles software to stream
business applications to customers.
But this months purchase
of California-based Stream
Theory has jinxed investors.
The $25 million initial price will
be joined by a payment of 2
times sales over the next two
years, adding perhaps another
$18 million. A Japanese telco will
use STs software to distribute
games. Next Tuesday, Tadpole
will issue a prospectus and
promises to explain all.

From investtech.com

Negative Candidate (-79)
(Overall analysis) - Jul 21, 2004 Score explanation
TADPOLE TECH. ORD 10P is technically negative for the short and medium term, and neutral for the long term.

Negative Candidate (-91) (Short term)
Has broken down through the floor of the falling trend channel, which signals an even stronger falling rate. The negative development, however, may give rise to short term corrections up from today's level. It also gave a negative signal from a rectangle formation at the break down through the support at 14.70. Further fall to 11.65 or lower is signaled. The stock has resistance at p 15.10. The volume balance is negative and weakens the stock in the short term. The stock is overall assessed as technically negative for the short term.

Negative Candidate (-87) (Medium term)
Has broken down through the floor of the falling trend channel, which signals an even stronger falling rate. The negative development, however, may give rise to short term corrections up from today's level. It also gave a negative signal from a rectangle formation at the break down through the support at 14.70. Further fall to 11.67 or lower is signaled. The stock has support at p 9.20 and resistance at p 15.40. Volume tops correspond well with price tops, and volume bottoms correspond well with price bottoms. Volume balance is also positive, which weakens the falling trend and could be an early signal for a coming trend break. RSI is oversold, which indicates a potential short-term reaction up. The RSI curve shows a falling trend, which supports the negative trend. The stock is overall assessed as technically negative for the medium long term.

Neutral (-9) (Long term)
(Has broken through the floor of a rising trend channel. This indicates a slower rising rate at first, or the start of a more horizontal development. Is moving within a rectangle formation between support at 1.34 and resistance at 23.83. A decisive break through one of these levels indicates the new direction for the stock. The stock has support at p 5.80 and resistance at p 19.00. Negative volume balance weakens the stock in the short term. The stock is overall assessed as technically neutral for the long term.

Own goal?

yes.

Will it ever turn into a big fat toad.

Ok guys

Back to the early mornings next week I'm afraid.
Still I am assured it will be worth it.

M

ML
Lets hope the outcome is better than the last time we got up early.....

Why do we have to get up early? some kind of presentation/prospectus on Tuesday, does anyone know more?

Get Those Stun Guns Ready: Here Comes Masayoshi Son
Softbank is launching an assault on the online-game market

For a guy who spent the late 1990s buying a piece of just about any company that struck his fancy, Masayoshi Son sure has been doing a lot of selling lately. Over the past year, Son's Tokyo-based Softbank Corp. has unloaded parts of its holdings in Yahoo!, Yahoo Japan, and telecom gear-maker UTStarcom for a total of $1.4 billion. In August, Softbank expects to sell its 49% stake in Japan's Aozora Bank for $865 million. Why the sell-off? Broadband. In the past two years, Softbank has emerged as a leading provider of high-speed Internet access in Japan. Now, Son wants to dominate the market for entertainment delivered over the Net. The asset sales "will give me more ammunition to keep fighting," says Son, Softbank's founder and president. Advertisement

Get your stun guns ready: Son's first assault will aim at Japan's online-game market. On July 25 he plans to open a Web portal called BB Games featuring about 50 titles. Players will pay a monthly fee of $8.50 to $13 per title to square off against others across the country. By yearend 2004, Softbank plans to offer as many as 300 games and hopes the site to bring in revenues of at least $400 million per year by 2006. Of that, BB Games will keep 20%, with the remainder going to game developers. "There's no doubt that the killer application for broadband is online games," says Taizo Son, Son's younger brother and a partner in the venture.

Having bet some $1.5 billion on Softbank's Yahoo BB broadband service in the past two years, Son could use a killer app. Today, Yahoo BB has 2.8 million subscribers and holds 25% of Japan's broadband market, just behind leader Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp. Problem is, Softbank has spent more than $1 billion to build Yahoo BB's network and at least an additional $500 million on marketing. And it pays NTT some $40 million a month to use the lines linking Yahoo BB to customers' homes. Yahoo BB is now generating $95 million in revenue a month, but Softbank continues to bleed cash. In the fiscal year ended in March, it lost $855 million on revenues of $3.5 billion, compared with a $760 million loss on $3.5 billion in sales in 2001.

Son is hoping to turbocharge revenues by getting his broadband subscribers hooked on services such as games that bring in extra cash. Already, Yahoo BB has attracted 2.5 million users to an Internet phone service, and it's now experimenting with pay-TV over its network. Down the line, Son plans to expand into e-learning and corporate services such as videoconferencing. Japan's broadband content market could be worth $6.4 billion by 2005, a sharp jump from $1.5 billion last year, according to Mitsubishi Research Institute Inc.

Some wonder, though, whether people are ever going to pay for services delivered over the Internet. "It's a bet that I don't think is going to make a lot of money" for Softbank, says Ben Wedmore, an industry analyst with HSBC Securities (Japan) Ltd. Softbank's track record isn't all that great. In March, Son launched BB television, which offers Tokyo customers 14 TV channels over Internet lines as well as access to more than 400 movies for as little as $2.50 each. So far, only 1,000 subscribers have signed up for the $21-per-month service -- though Son says that's because Softbank hasn't really begun marketing yet.

Few, however, doubt that online interactive games will be profitable for Softbank. In Korea, games have emerged as a major driver of traffic on that country's ultrafast Internet connections. Softbank has already attracted 265,000 customers willing to pay $13 per month to play Ragnarok, a community-building game in which players assume the identity of a cartoon character.

Son isn't the only one who sees the potential for black ink in the blood-and-pixels of online games. NTT, Softbank's biggest rival in broadband services, is considering a game portal of its own, and Sony offers a similar service to owners of its game machines. Still, Son is wagering almost everything he owns. For the father of the Japanese Net, this is a thriller not even BB Games can top.

By Irene M. Kunii in Tokyo

i repeat, Why do we have to get up early?

Kivver: I shouldn't bother, TAD's share price, or any other, for that matter, is unlikely to be influenced by any of us crawling out of our pits at some ungodly hour.

Price looks attractive but I'm not sure if it's bottomed yet.

Kivver

As you may or may not know Tues is when the details of the aquisition are to be announced, according to Shares Mag. I was personally hoping for a little bit of news as well.
Now as news is usually announced in the morning!! You follow?

M