One other observation on your post is that we are no longer talking about banking institutions having to lend to restaurant operators or franchisees. We are talking about Corporate IT spending. This has been hurt by the economy as well, but it is a different mechanism.
The figure that uWink has on it's web site right now for the capital needed for a franchise is 1.6M. I have it from a friend that used to be an accountant at O'Tooles that a figure of 300-400k is more realistic for a franchise. that leaves the reality that 1-1.2M is for technology, or the licensing portion of the investment. that would be for the whole works (all applications).
The new reality is that they will likely offer the pieces of the whole separately, which will allow it to fit available budgets easier. Various packages could go for 100k and up, depending on what the customer wanted. They may already have a POS system and just want gaming, etc.
I am not too intimate with the corporate spending cycle, but I would guess that budgets this year are under pressure. There may be some dribs and drabs, but anything big would not happen until early next year, when new budgets become available. I would think that budgets are confirmed in January and maybe some announcements would be possible as early as February. Once again, I am just guessing,as I do not have extensive sales experience.
Personally, I think that is too late for the company to be financially comfortable in it's current form. We will see.
