Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Blah blah, blah. "Retailer' Secret Weapon"? Seriously?
Nothing a retailer does with their advertising is secret. How can QR codes be a secret, if anyone can see the codes in ads, POP or on packaging? If QR codes were the key for retail marketing, everyone in the business would be implementing them. If what Marriott says is true, then what happened with Walmart, K-Mart, Kohls, JCP, and all the others?
More of the same babble about industry statistics that are essentially meaningless. Everything is a generality.
Although QR codes have crossed over into the mainstream, some consumers may still need to be educated on how to use them.
What a great quote coming from the CEO of a company she claims is the "global leader" in QR code technology. And, lest we forget, a company that has been around for over 20 years. Twenty years in business as the global leader and still making the case for educating consumers?
She refers to retailers that are not Neomedia clients. They are all Scanbuy clients! Scanbuy's retail clients include Target, Macy's, Sears, Home Depot, and GAP. Check out Scanbuy's website for the list and then look at Neomedia's website. Sorry, I forgot, NDA's prevent Marriott talking about any clients they have.
She loves referring to campaigns that are long since over and not being repeated. Notice all she talks about is what some companies tried but is silent about any results. For retailers, if a marketing tactic works, you can be assured they will keep doing it and expand the use.
Nice rhetoric, but nothing substantive or statistically supported.
H&M, the one former Neomedia client, has not done anything for at least two years. The big success story: 100 people lined up out of the 120K who were sent an SMS code and 2000 t-shirts were given away.
This is what she considers a major success?
Mark your calendars for March 23rd for all of the Marriott quotes, which can be read in advance, right here from some of her previous 2010-2011 public statements:
“QR codes are fabulous at bringing life to static media,” said Laura Marriot, CEO of NeoMedia Technologies, New York." I guess she relocated the company again.
“We are beginning to see mobile bar codes have an impact on the retail experience however, there is still much consumer education and awareness needed for mobile bar codes to really change the way consumers shop,” said Laura Marriott, CEO of NeoMedia Technologies, Boulder, CO. Back to Boulder again,
“I believe we will see significant uptake of these services,” Ms. Marriott said. “Mobile bar codes still have a bit of the newness factor and are fun to engage with, which definitely also helps to drive interactions.
“In 2012 we should expect to see a rise in mobile bar code scanning implementations resulting in greater consumer participation, expanded loyalty initiatives and an overall enhanced consumer experience
As she put it: “2010, and particularly the second half of the year, has seen mobile barcodes experience tremendous market adoption. We’re already seeing impressive adoption by brands, handset manufacturers and operators for use in mobile marketing and advertising campaigns, as well as in other sectors such as retail and logistics, and this will continue to grow in 2011 as barriers to adoption such as consumer education, handset integration and brand integration/awareness are overcome.”
NeoMedia has seen significant adoption of mobile barcodes by brands in the last year and a half, but we’re still in the early phase, Marriott added. In particular, she is waiting for a massive viral event centered on scanning use that will herald the mainstream arrival of the barcode.
Ms. Marriott, however, expects to see growing use of bar codes for couponing and on packaging as a way to provide more information than UPC.
Adoption rates of mobile bar codes have increased dramatically over the last year. This dramatic increase indicates that mobile bar codes are starting to be recognised as an effective and efficient way for brands to engage with their target audience.
The song remains the same with no change in outcomes.
As another poster pointed out, Boulder was where Marriott had HQ'd the Mobile Marketing Association when it first started and she was the CEO.
After several years, the BOD threw her out and moved the HQ to New York, where it should have been from the beginning. Why? Because that is where all the major ad agencies and national brands are located!
Marriott knew nothing about dealing with or how to sell mobile into ad agencies and brands. She played fast and loose with the finances, went through staff like crazy because she micro-managed everyone in the company and blamed them for anemic performance and her management failures.
Sound familiar to Neomedia? How about the three CFO's and three sales people in the past 12 months?
If her argument for relocating to Boulder, as a major tech center, was a driving force for the decision, then how come they picked offices that share the same center with psychologists, a massage therapy studio, self-storage, alternative (quack) medicine and check this one out: www.zenposture.com, a zen posture furniture store! Yeah, nothing like being in the center of international technology.
How has Marriott even come close to what she claims on the company website?
NeoMedia Technologies, Inc. is the global market leader in 2D mobile barcode technology and infrastructure solutions that enable the mobile barcode ecosystem world-wide.
Not even close. Global market leader? According to whom?
Why would you hire a CEO and allow them to work from home to run a public company?
She's a joke.
Why does a guy who has been retired from the Army for 20 years and was not a hard-ass combat commander, insist upon being referred to a "Colonel" ?
Sounds like he wants to make sure everyone knows he was a colonel, no matter what. I have a friend who is a retired two-star general and he doesn't refer to himself as "General".
Where does Marriott find these people?
Once he gets a look at the books and the seal with YAGI, he will be out the door.
Ask Marriott exactly how much money Neomedia has generated during the time of her tenure from paid ad campaigns, using Neomedia's platform. Forget all the hardware and IP licensing. Just the revenue from brands and their agencies running QR ad campaigns.
No doubt, some individual at the brand or agency level coordinates any utilization of QR code integration. And yes, QR is just one part of a total effort.
Putting aside for the moment your assertion that using a free service would not even be considered, let's look at just how much someone would pay. All media is sold and bought in a demand and supply environment. The more demand the higher the price as well as the converse of that.
The point is, how much pricing leverage does Marriott have in a world of free or dirt cheap services. Supply is very high and demand may be increasing base upon press reports. Assume the demand is high but so is the supply.
If you were a brand, how much would you be willing to pay to create five or six codes along along with tracking the number of scans and placements for each code for a typical one month campaign? Those brand people would consider these factors:
Should they be willing to pay $100K, $50K, $10K or $1K? Assuming your brand has an attractive offer or incentive at the end connection of the QR code, how much is that QR connection worth? Let's say you got very lucky and generated around 1M scans in a month. Extremely lucky and most probably not even close to reality. Suspend reality for the moment.
At a cost of $100K that equates to a $100 CPM (Cost-per-thousand, the basic metric for determining the pricing of most media) .
Mobile display ads sell for between $1.00 and $10.00 CPM's. So on that basis, a reasonable QR campaign CPM range at 1M scans would be between a $1.00 CPM and a campaign cost of $1000 or $10.00 CPM at a price of $10K. If you can get your display CPM to average $5.00, how would you justify a $10.00 CPM for the QR portion? Keep in mind, once someone clicks on a display ad, you as a brand can track every additional click all the way through a purchase or transaction of some sort. QR metrics stop once the you are connected to the mobile website. What will you be willing to pay more for? QR or display?
How many ad campaigns would Neomedia need to be running every month at the $10K per campaign, just to cover the $400K a month from YA? That's right: 40. If the reality is closer to $1K, that would equal 400 campaigns.
Annualized, that comes out to between 480 and 4800 campaigns annually. Now count the number of listed advertisers on Neomedia's website. And how many sales people do they have?
The next question for Marriott should be how many paid advertiser campaigns were run with Neomedia in 2010 and 2011. No reason for that number to be a state secret, minus the names of the advertisers. Or how many advertisers do you have and what was the average number of campaigns run annually for each advertiser? 10, 20, 30?
Do the math. Marriott and YA certainly are not when it comes to reporting to the shareholders.
It is great that QR is getting all this press but nowhere are there any stats on how much is being actually spent or estimated spends by advertisers for QR codes campaigns.
The fact that there are countless free QR code creation tools available online is the elephant in the room for the Neomedia and Scanbuys.
When have you seen any QR code company publish any actual revenue figures attributable to paid advertiser campaigns? All the numbers, Neomedia, for example buries them inside of generalized headings. There is no way to see if just the advertiser campaigns actually spent X amount of dollars in 2010 and that increased/decreased by X$ in 2011.
All we get are percentage increases of scans but never actual total scans. Scanbuy does the same thing. You never see actual revenues.
All these companies are operating off of investor funds or financing like Neomedia has with YA. Turn that funding off and they would shut down in less than 24 hours.
My guess is that the Boulder office is a UPS Store mailbox at best.
The only "office" was in Atlanta and everyone else worked from their homes, beginning with Manganilla who was in New York until last winter. So much for having a real NYC office.
As for naming five US sales people, that would be impossible because there are none. If Marriott counts herself as a sales person, she should say so. Manganilla, Miller and Braun have all been out of Neomedia since last summer and were not replaced. Moore is a tech guy and not a sales guy.
GIven Marriott's ego, is there any doubt she'd be sending out press releases if she signed any real paying customers? Instead she keeps using that BS about NDA confidentiality.
Does Marriott ever give a direct answer to any question? She constantly speaks and writes in broad generalities.
Considering how big players like Google, Apple, PayPal (eBay) and others have been moving quickly to create or buy up NFC related patents, doesn't it make sense they would be knocking on Neomedia's door? Those companies have armies of patent lawyers and engineers who know how to look up existing patents that may have direct or tangential relationships to what they are developing. If Neomedia had any valuable NFC patents, those guys would have already identified them.
Lest we forget, those same big companies have existing and long-term relationships with all the mobile carriers and credit card companies. How many relationships do Marriott and Neomedia have with those companies?
For Marriott to say she does not see a place for NFC in marketing is totally laughable and candidly, insulting to her investors. The mobile wallet is well on the road to happening. I'd be willing to guess that by the end of 2012, you won't see any new smartphones being sold that don't have an NFC chipset in them. Phasing in NFC phones is just a matter of a few years. Does Marriott really believe that all those major players (handset makers, carriers and credit card companies, banks etc) will not be marketing the crap out of NFC?
Once the big players have established the standards and gained critical mass, every brand will be doing everything they can to inform, educate and promote use of NFC via a Mobile Wallet. Credit cards are going to be replaced by mobile wallets. Technology marches on.
For Marriott to opine that NFC won't cannibalize 2D because there is a "cost issue" to enable NFC tags on shelves and packages is naive at best. With massive volumes, costs become negligible. The average supermarket stocks 30-40,000 items. I would guess they have sufficient volumes to lower the costs of NFC tags. Using her logic, Walmart never would have deployed RFID chips to track and restock inventory.
If major retailers can reduce the number of clerks and cash registers, speed up check outs, and make impulse buying easier by deploying NFC tagged merchandise, does anyone really think they won't?
Her comment about not having to be close to something to scan the code vs. near proximity needed for NFC is hilarious. What does that mean? I can scan a 2D code from five feet away vs having to be no further than three feet for NFC? That is somehow a disadvantage? What about going to the trouble of pulling up the scanning app, doing the scan and waiting for a result/connection vs the NFC chip doing it automatically?
And this woman is running the company! What joke.
I noticed LM managed to dismiss the dumping of US sales people as not having met their quota. No one lasted past July? What about the last six months? Who was out selling in the US. For LM to claim they have five sales managers, she must be counting herself or what she means is "everyone is in sales".
What were the total actual US sales for 2011 apart from patent licensing?
How many FTE employees are there in the US and what do they do?
She is a complete joke as a CEO.
If YA is not committed to future funding then Neo is toast.
What is going to replace that monthly transfusion of $450K? If the company is in such good shape, then why the need for $5,400,000 a year in additional funding? Where did that money go? Three sales people on an annual basis couldn't cost any more than one month's cash infusion from YA.
LM and the new CFO are either clueless, being deceptive or flat out lying about the financial condition of Neo.
Dream on if you think LM or the new CFO will give you cogent answers to these questions. All you will get will be generalizations at best. The new CFO will stick to numbers and nothing more because he is a neophyte.
Why do you think with such a small number of individual investors, the CCalls are nothing more than a controlled reading of written answers to selected questions? They do not want to answer any questions directly. This is why there is never a public meeting for the shareholders.
Why not ask LM to have an in-person annual meeting that includes the shareholders?
I'd want LM to answer how many of them were active clients over the past 12 months and who they are.
If you read the SEC filings, LM is pulling down $288/yr. and GO is another $65K. Those two people are about 43% of the total G&A expenses of $830K. Is that high a number justifiable, given the company revenues?
Facts:
1. Neomedia's only sales people are in Europe. Miller and Braun were the last of the US sales people. If there are a "gaggle of lower level sales staff", who are they and where are they? This would be a good question for LM on the next conference call or how about sending her an email with the question? WIthout a sales staff in the US to sell their campaign management product to advertisers, it will not generate any revenue. The only people left in the US are LM, some bean counters and engineering people. There are only two sales people, and both are in Europe. Check the website.
2. As far as GIP is concerned: Good Luck! Sure, they could try licensing the patents but to whom? Other competitors? Like they have done in the past with Scanbuy? Neo screwed themselves with licensing to Scanbuy. If the case for Neomedia's patents was so strong, why didn't they go for damages vs. a licensing deal? Is litigation is concerned, let's not forget lawyers like GIP are not going to work for free or on any contingency. Why would they? Does anyone really believe the revenue potential from patent licensing or litigation is going to generate tens of millions of dollars in new revenue? GMAFB! Try suing Google or Microsoft. After those companies, all the other companies, including Scanbuy are small businesses. Check them out and you will find they are all operating off of investor funding and are not close to being self-sustaining.
And as you have stated, Neomedia does not have the internal resources or even a passing expertise of the management to begin or wage any sort of patent war.
3. All of this NDA nonsense, hiring GIP, shows how much of a smoke screen it is for YA's pump and dump of Neomedia. This is the real end game for Neomedia.
If they need $450K a month, to cover their expenses, how much real revenue is being generated per month?
What the monthly burn rate? No sales people in the US, probably 2-3 people in Atlanta, LM and perhaps 2-3 engineering types? LM works from her home. Are they paying her rent for her home office? Seems to me that even $450K a month is on the high side for a tiny company like neomedia.
So if there is no other cash coming in from the US, why be paying out $450K for non-revenue generating overhead?
Looks to me like the books are getting cooked.
The BOD is nothing but a show. Companies like Neomedia recruit BOD members based on their ability to help the company grow and expand or because they are major investors who want to keep an eye on their investments. Just as GO'L is YA's eyes and ears at any BOD meeting.
Perhaps Laura should be asked what Mannetti and Fay have done to help, other than attend some meetings and giving their opinions.
Fay has been a big time media person, judging by her LinkedIn page. Surely she could call in some favors or get out with LM to promote the company. Have they done that? I'm not holding my breath for the answer to that question.
And please spare us all the BS about NDA's when it comes to the client roster. It is fake excuse for dodging any questions about signing new clients. The list of logos on the web page should be examined for how many are currently active within the last six months.
How come Scanbuy can announce new signings and campaigns and Neomedia can't?
Sarah and Peter are both personal friends of Marriott's. That is how they came to be on the board. Marriott wants moral support, apparently and to feel like she is in charge. YA just rubber-stamped Sarah and Peter. No big deal as YA wields all the power because they control the funding. Like Marriott, they are just figureheads and are there to be fall-guys as far as YA is concerned.
The larger question is why be on a board when you have no power to do anything? I'd bet money those two new board members had no idea what the true story was in how Neom was being run. I'd be shocked if either of the new board members lasts a year.
GO is YA's guy and makes sure nothing happens YA does not want to happen. He may be the COO but Marriott is not going to do anything without his approval as he represents YA's interests. No doubt, Jerry at YA made that very clear to Marriott.
YA can do whatever they want with the financial operations of the company and the board bears the ultimate responsibility for any outcomes.
You would know about the professionalism of how your departure was handled and the stock portion of the comp. I was not questioning that. I have little doubt the deck is stacked in YA's favor and they tell Marriott what to do on all counts.
I don't know and you did not say if you had worked for or reported directly to Marriott. Or if your tenure was with one of her predecessors.
My point was Marriott's management style could be or would be a very large factor as to why there has been such high turnover in the staff over the past 12 months. My sources say she is a reflection of YA and is only interested in having people carry out her edicts and is a real micro-manager. Add that sort of management style to your comments about the comp/stock farce and it is not hard to see why qualified people have left so quickly. In my experience, most people will tolerate problems with a comp plan if they really enjoy the workplace environment and the believe, in the quality of the products. Marriott's management style does not make her a bad person but it does bear on if she is the best person to lead this sort of company.
Beyond my comments, why would anyone want to work at a company that is on a month to month financial respirator?
I'd hazard a guess that Neomedia's 10K & 10Q filings have been talked up by competitors to advertisers, calling into question the viability of the company. Realistically, what is the incentive for an advertiser to use Neomedia if Neomedia's own public filings paint a dismal picture of financial health? Is a big brand going to knowingly put their campaign at risk with a company that only has 30 days of financing? Halfway through your campaign, Neomedia goes bust and all of your QR effort is locked into them? Sure, even Scanbuy can be called into question as to viability, but they can point to the tens of millions they have in funding as opposed to the $300-400K a month Neomedia has to beg YA to give them.
It doesn't matter one bit if the new BOD member, Manetti is the possible replacement in the wings for Marriott. YA will still be there and calling all the shots. He will be powerless and like Marriott, apparently just a figurehead, albeit a well paid figurehead for YA's pump and dump strategy.
My guess is that all the departures from Neomedia over the past year are votes on Marriott's management approach and style. She is obviously a control driven individual. Refusing to do a shareholder conference call where the shareholders can ask live questions is the most obvious example. The company does not have tens of thousands of shareholders precluding taking calls. Instead, the calls have been restricted to answering only selected pre-screened email questions. Her answers to those questions always sound like she is reading a written response. Zima sounded like a court jester when he would briefly speak.
My assumption is Marriott runs the company like the shareholder conference calls. She wants to call the shots at every junction and will not allow others to do what they were hired to do. Otherwise, why would all those folks have left? They couldn't all be brain dead.
I recall reading in an earlier post that Neo had ceded ownership of all but two or three patents to YA as part of the financing they were providing. Is that true or not?
Would not YA be calling the shots on hiring these new patent attorneys? Neo depends upon those monthly YA cash infusions to keep breathing.
I doubt the new lawyers would work on a contingency basis and probably bill out services for at least $500-700/hr for just one partner's time plus a big five figure retainer. If they are successful in winning a suit, they may have negotiated a bonus into their fee structure.
How would any of this be paid for unless YA was behind the decision and financing to do it? Laura doesn't make a move without YA's approval, based upon previous poster's comments.
This looks like $300-500K in legal bills and four to six months before anyone is even sued. And outside of going after MSFT or Google (Good luck with that!), what are the possible outcomes? Sue all of these small players? If they win, how much could be recovered in damages? Marginal at best.
Before anyone goes to court there will be settlement conferences, assuming they nail someone cold. The big firms like MSFT have armies of lawyers and are sued 30x a day for patent infringement. They can bury Neo and these new lawyers in paperwork for the next five years. Neo has to establish 1. Infringement and 2. Damages. That is a very long and expensive legal road with no guaranteed outcome. The MSFT's have the time and money that Neo does not. Neo may be in the right but fighting sustained legal battles is impossible.
Lawyers care about just one thing: billable hours. If they win, great, if they don't, they still get paid and Neo is still on the hook for all those billable hours.
All this saber rattling from Neo sounds good but before anyone gets too excited, practicality must prevail. Simply put, how certain is it that infringement can be proven? 50%, 70%, 90%? Anything below 80% can become a crap shoot. If the odds are below 70%, they lawyers are just grinding the client for fees. How much money can Neo afford to pay the lawyers, for how long without any total certainty of winning?
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=158345&nid=130848
Scanbuy again!
I thought Neomedia was the King in Europe.
Sounds like they are not very big on being held accountable for their actions. If they were all that confident about the path they are going down, you'd think they would welcome any and all questions. Truth is a great confidence builder.
Thanks for the link.
I count probably five clients that are US (English text).
That's it? Not very encouraging.
Pop, you are right on the mark, but with YA calling the shots, Neomedia may as well be on a respirator. If YA decides to stop funding on September 30, you can bet Neomedia will stop breathing no later than October 31. My guess is that all of the staff departures this year are tied to YA demanding cost reductions.
Given all the shenanigans the YA guys pull and the way JE and GO use LM as their puppet, I'm skeptical of how the books are being kept. Without any sales people in the US, who is responsible for sales? How can they be increasing sales without any sales people?
How do you have this supposed growth when there are never any announcements about new clients or success stories or anything? All that NDA stuff is BS. All the competitors issue press releases about client signings.
The shareholder CC is a joke with scripted responses to a small number of pre-selected emailed questions. With only a handful of shareholders, taking live questions should not be a problem. Unless they don't want to be asked certain questions or be called out to explain their actions. Why not submit a question for the next CC as to LM naming the top five or ten new clients in 2011?
LM's quotes acre convoluted and read like tightly scripted sales pitches. Skogg on the other hand is succinct and easy to understand and remember.
I checked out the Quaker deal. Neomedia was hired by Stargreetz, the other company mentioned in the story and not Quaker.
Why that blog keeps quoting Laura on all these QR stories recently is very strange. She and Neomedia had nothing to do with Heinz, so why quote her? The quotes are all just blather about the virtues of QR. What credibility to the story is there when no one at Heinz would comment? How would Laura know what was really driving Heinz's decisions? Lame reporting if you asked me.
Even the press Neomedia is generating is smoke and mirrors. Perfect fit with YA's methods.
How many on that list of resellers are actually generating business for Neo? How many are current and how many are former resellers? Of all the Neo customers on their site, which ones are from resellers?
A reseller contracts for a discounted price and then marks it up for sale to their clients. What's the big advantage for Neo here? Probably it is a way around hiring their own sales people. All of the resellers become another competitor to Neo, just like Scanbuy is. Sure, Neo gets some money but not very much.
The problem is how much money is in the deal for the reseller from Neo? What is the big motivator to sell Neo codes? It can't be tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. If it was, Neo would be stupid to not hire a bunch of sales people to go after those same companies the reseller is going after.
Don't forget the three sales people that have come and gone so far this year. Makes you wonder what they concluded.
Companies of this size with the amount of turn over Neomedia has speaks volumes about what is not happening there from both a management and product standpoint.
When employees see YA as being the true management of the company, and using it for their own enrichment, how can you expect them to believe anything management tells them or be motivated in their jobs?
Not disputing that Toyota and others are using QR. The issue is how much are the customers paying. Not that much, is my point. Brands still see QR as experimental without any long-term experience with it. Free QR services, along with free tests and cheap pricing prevails across the for-pay QR providers. JagTag sold to Augme because they realized QR by itself is cannot scale.
If I'm incorrect about no company being self-sustaining, then name one that is, meaning any that are beyond needing VC support or if they are publicly traded, are in the black.
Sure, Microsoft Tag might be because it is Microsoft, but I doubt it is barely profitable.
No marketing department, no sales team, along with an "acting" CEO & COO, the stock being controlled and manipulated by YA and everyone wonders when Neo is going to take off? Dream on!
Other than long term licensing deals like eBay and Scanbuy, who are their current big customers? They always have some lame excuse for not talking about any successes. That says there are none.
Neo and every other QR company has been living off of investor money for years. Not one is really self sustaining. Neo's financial reporting in the 10K and 10K are convoluted and almost impossible for a lay person to understand.
As for Apple or anyone else being interested in buying a QR company, it would have happened by now it they thought there was a big revenue upside.
Neo has licensed companies like Scanbuy for the next ten years...probably their biggest competitor! The company refuses to say who the current customers are.
Former CEO's and CTO's are working for competitive companies.
They tried to do a patent auction and closed it when there were no takers. So much for market demand for the allegedly valuable patents.
Yorkville is really running Neo because every C-level manager is "Acting" and along with all the employees other than a a couple in Atlanta, work from home and not from the company HQ.
Yorkville keeps diluting the stock with every passing month.
And people on this board actually think someone is going to come in and buy this POS for a big number? Are you kidding me?
There is no sales team in the US.
Neo started the year with three and each of them has left.
Someone explain to me why a company with fewer than 20 employees and only two physical offices needs $9M a rear in revenues to break even. Not one full-time senior executive, everyone is a contractor of sorts absent any million dollar comp packages.
Something is wrong with that picture.
Read the story. Crate & Barrel did not select Neo for their codes. The reporter filled empty space with comments from Laura.
The Neom website news headline is misleading. If you didn't click on the link on the news page to read the complete story, the implication is that C&B used Neo.
If you read the story, the reporter never discloses where C&B got the QR codes. C&B did not respond to the reporter's calls. I'd bet the codes were free ones.
If ScanBuy was the provider, no doubt they would have issued a press release or called the reporter.
I'm amazed at how much space all you folks have spent on debating Neom QR patents code types, carriers, RFID and NFC.
The reality here is pretty simple. If patent infringement were such a big deal and represented so much potential value to Neo and YA, then why have they not sued the infringers, short of Scanbuy? And then what did they do? They signed a ten year license agreement with Scanbuy, Neo's major competitor. How smart was that?
The answer to why they are not suing the alleged infringers is that they either don't have the money or don't want to spend it on litigation without a very strong chance of prevailing. Patent attorneys are expensive and litigation even more so. The patent attorneys probably told them that the guys they might sue are no better off financially than Neo is or even worse. Neo might win and still collect nothing. A company like Google or Microsoft would be the only exception but they could bury Neo in legal fees for years. Neo management should be able to address the subject of patent lawsuits on the next investor call. All of LM's saber rattling to date is just that. If Neo's position is so strong, then sue!
As to NFC, it is not another RFID balloon. Check out: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-20090016-92/visa-sets-deadlines-on-nfc-efforts/?tag=mncol;3n. and http://www.paywithisis.com/.
All the major carriers, PayPal, eBay, Google, VISA, MC, AMEX, & Discover have lined up to do NFC. This will happen because the potential revenue from mobile payments is astronomical.
Marriot's statements all try to dismiss NFC as inconsequential compared to QR. If her premise is true, then what's keeping the carriers from integrating QR readers into their phones? What has Neo done to sign up any carriers? The carriers have had years to adopt and integrate QR but haven't. What does that tell you? And the same is true for the credit card companies. Are they falling all over themselves to make QR part of their products?
All the noteable companies in the QR space, short of Microsoft are living off of investor money or loans. Would Neo be in business if YA was not putting cash in every month? I don't think so. How about the $10M Scanbuy raised earlier this year?
I don't see anyone asking on this board about how much the average QR advertiser campaign is worth to a Neo, Scanbuy or JagTag. It would be a good idea to find out how much money is being spent because if it is not at least mid to high five figures per advertiser, there is no way to sustain any of these companies. Do the math. How many ad campaigns per month do you need at what average price per campaign to hit say $3M a year in sales? At $50K each it would take 60 to hit that $3M. If the average sale is closer to $10K per moth, it would take 300. Can anyone point to 300 QR ad campaigns in one year, for the entire industry, let alone one company doing that much volume? Now go check out all the press releases from these companies to see how many clients they have announced. My guess is that any one of them would sell their Grandmother to close one deal for $50K of spend in one month.
JagTag sold out to Augme because it was impossible to sustain their business as a QR code only business. As part of Augme, JagTag becomes one more product to offer an advertiser amongst many others. Neo, ScanBuy and the others are no different. Free codes are killing all of them, no matter how much they claim they have superior products and capabilities.
I've heard that argument before but it doesn't hold the soda! Any brand that goes to the trouble of imprinting QR codes on their products does so for specific reasons. It could be for product information, product registration or it could be in regards to a promotion. The question needs to be asked: How many companies are going to need to or want to change where the QR code leads to? And why would they? Where is the data supporting that premise of changing the destinations on the fly being critical? Food and beverage products don't stay on the shelf longer than a few weeks. Newspaper and magazine ads only run for days or weeks. And what is it that you need to know in real time? If the QR connects to a website, the site can easily be monitored for traffic, especially if the page is uniquely connected to the QR. The only real time information you will get is where the code was scanned from. So what? You can ask that when someone hits the destination page, if that is so critical. You are correct, not all QR codes are the same but free codes are only trashed by the companies trying to sell QR codes.
Claiming that clients demand NDA's or that publicly traded companies are required to get them from clients is bogus. I've never heard that before in any publicly traded I've worked for, ever. Show me the SEC regulations where that is spelled out.
Why are all management people consultants and contractors instead of being hired as regular full time employees. That makes no sense at all, unless YA is calling the shots as the shadow management of the company. Who do LM & GO report to? If it is YA, then how is that legal? YA does not have any board seats from what I can see.
If there were any good news about signing up new clients from Neo, I'm sure they would want to do press releases about it. Keeping the details of the relationship confidential goes without saying. Scanbuy makes these announcements all the time. I doubt there is any one company in QR making money. What I'm hearing is that there are all kinds of ways you can make QR codes for free as well as getting the data information on how people are scanning.
Don't know.
Called NeoMedia.
Miller left in June.
Just six months? Something must have scared him off.
I've never seen a publicly traded company where the CEO, COO were all "acting". Why is that?
Braun is gone. Off the NeoMedia website exec bio page and Linkedin indicates he is no longer works there.
Top sales guy Bruce Braun and CFO Mike Zima left the company over the past several weeks. Do they have any sales people in the US?