During the remaining time spent on my trip, I had further occasion to meet with Drew Budhu and refine my understanding of what iFinix is about and has going on. I'd like to cook it down to some essential points here and update my understanding as expressed in the first post.
1. PRODUCTS
(A) Phoenix Analyst - This is a real time product that operates from a desktop installation capable of extensive tracking lists in real time and level 2 and time and sales.
(B) Phoenix Pro - Trading platform that would essentially be tied into participating broker-dealer's execution services.
(C) Scanner - This was listed as a separate stand-alone real time market scanner, filter, alert and screening tool.
(D) Efinix - This is currently being coded
COMMENTS:
Phoenix products do not seem to be resource hogs which is a good thing. They are supposed to be running on C++ code making them fast and resulting in superior data latency. The response of ticker quotes seems rapid and may be faster than some competing products and brokerage streamers.
The feature sets are pretty rich with plenty of drop-down lists and configuration options, probably much more than many products on the market.
I was told the charting module was created from scratch. The chart module does seem to work from my review and may be a handy intra-day charting tool.
I consider the Analyst product to be a market competitor of MicroCapFeed and QuoteTracker.
Efinix product will be the java based streaming quote product that is most closely comparable to Alphatrade, though I think people will be very interested in Analyst for similar reasons.
Coding team is supposed to be comprised of Drew & Ricardo from the company as project managers and 2 teams of half a dozen programmers each in India who are currently making final revisions to Phoenix products (not sure demo downloads are current and will remind company of this if so) and Efinix java product, respectively. I did speak to a fellow in India put on the phone by Drew, but frankly I can't derive any additional conclusions pro or con from that brief exposure on the phone.
I have pushed for them to fold the scanner into the Analyst product to give the user a more complete real time data product and more bang for the buck. If they do that, it could delay the product a week or two, but the robustness of the product then could really get market share so it would be a smart move in my opinion.
2. CMA & DATA FEEDS
Most of their data feeds will be from partnership with CMA. CMA is supposed to provide data feeds to a very big user base in South America, specifically Brazil. INXR benefits from this affiliation cost-wise as they get a significant break on data costs (a very large part of the cost structure of this start-up). CMA should provide the bulk of the data feeds for Naz, AMEX, NYSE, etc.
PinkSheets.com will directly provide the data feeds for Pink Sheet quotes and you will be able to get this with Level 2 and T&S on Pinks.
TBD - Canadian & miscellaneous foreign data feeds may be made available later depending on demand.
COMMENTS:
I said to Drew Budhu some people wondered how much of the code for their products was proprietary and how much came from CMA and he seemed surprised people thought the coding was not done by iFinix which is what he stressed several times.
He said the proprietary code resides within INXR and is not privately owned by him and that the proprietary value is something that accrues to shareholders. OK, sounds good.
He said CMA has even relied on them to upgrade and render back-end server code in C++ that would be used to serve CMA's own customer base. Again, I asked them to explain this better to their shareholders whenever they can.
3. INXR OS
As I wrote earlier, my understanding of the history of the company is they got mishandled by earlier financiers who executed a dump of their shares and iFinix never got the funds from the equity raise. This set iFinix back a couple of years ago. They subsquently diluted in 2006 to survive, but at least they claim they retained the funds for their business and take very little in salary.
I asked them if they would be fully open about their share structure and they said yes. I have asked them to have their transfer agent be authorized to disclose their share structure. They seemed to believe this could be beneficial and I hope they will also address this soon. I was told Budhu and Spadaro each own 250M shares approximately so there is 1/3rd of the OS held by insiders.
4. OTC LISTING
It definitely seems to be underway and they have publicly posted some of the documents required to apply and they made the initial filings. I think they may even be preparing for Blue Sky filings (makes you tradeable in each of the 50 U.S. States that are applied for and approved) in advance of their listing.
They do seem legit thus far and remember that I did initially greenlight my DD on the CFO as being legit so it is looking good. I will try to follow up on the status this in coming weeks. I don't have any pressing need to predict timing on this.
I am most interested the rest of this month in seeing how the company defines their product strategy so we can see a plan for product hitting the market, being actively used and creating real consumer buzz by the time a listing occurs.
5. PROMOTIONS
They affirmed they have an advertising firm lined up that is preparation for a print and TV campaign. We saw a subsequent PR confirming this.
6. SUBSIDIARIES
R&B - My take on this is it was essentially a corporate entity that encapsulated Drew Budhu's work as a programming consultant. It was folded into the company to provide both some revenues and to act as a vehicle for future revenues from any consulting work performed. My personal bias is this is fine, but I will remain most interested in timely focus on their financial products platform at this time.
Additionally, if they were to add in any further income producing opportunities unrelated to the financial suite of products, my understanding is it would be operated from within the R&B subsidiary to keep proper separation and maintain focus. Craig is responsible now for R&B in terms of either recruiting consulting contracts or bringing in other income producing business.
FastFIX - This was actually PR'd in 2006 and does exist actually. INXR would get 10% of all future revenues of this company when they go live and generate business. I was introduced to the principal named Vijay and he seemed very presentable and sincere.
In a nutshell, Drew coded for him a web-based application that acts as a matchmaker for shipping brokers seeking to locate excess shipping capacity to match up the deliveries of raw industrial materials (as opposed to cargo container shipping) for global buyers and sellers. There appears to be a major market niche not yet fully exploited for such a service.
I found FASTFix very interesting from a potential business perspective and also because perhaps it evidenced INXR principal Budhu's programming skills. I was demo'd that application and could see how it might be used. It is not going to be actively marketed until the second half of 2007 according to them.
I would discount the likelihood of this contributing anything to INXR's bottom line in 2007, but it may be a sleeper later. It should not distract from the main activity of INXR and it won't. But it did seem to confirm the validity of one PR issued in 2006 regarding this which was another small piece of validation.
7. UPCOMING
I think AlphaTrade rests on their laurels and their market share can be rapidly cannibalized by someone providing a steady Pink Sheet feed with a better overall feature set. That is why I look for INXR to get a fully-enhanced desktop-based Analyst out to market and actively promoted in the near future. After that release is firm, then Efinix will come out later and be most directly resembling AlphaTrade due to its web-based java interface.
The Analyst market introduction should be a good lead-in then for next promoting trading through their Pro platform. That means we could be looking for announcements of sponsoring brokers who will hook the Phoenix platform into their brokerage. Then you'd be able to open an account and execute trades.
This could amount to one very aggressive brokerage that wants to promote these products to drive business to their brokerage. If that is the case and the executions are fast and the commissions price right that could be a winner that really drives market awareness of Ifinix product and generates royalties on a commission split. Or there could be many brokerages announced over time which would be exciting too. I will be looking for this to come pretty soon, but first I want to seem them go after the real time data delivery segment which is ripe for the picking.
Within these overall scheme of bringing their product suite to market should be various forms of marketing as expected with the assistance of Ed Yeaker Associates.
And somewhere during this continuum should fall an OTC uplisting.
And a successful show of evidence of alignment with shareholders by the company should inspire us all to support their products by using them ourselves. I believe some of their greatest marketing success would come from word of mouth from users. It is for this reason I have advised them to consider their best interests to be served by serving their shareholders who could indeed become their best marketers if everything comes to pass as it should.
From what I've seen thus far, these guys are definitely trying to get many things off the ground and flying soon. The market is warming up to their stock and I expect this to be considered a very cheap entry soon. I see it is under heavy accumulation and I smell some really good moves coming that may or may not coincide with news which I do not care to time or trade on. I think we are in good shape here. Good luck to all
I hear that, I hate spending money. It would be an extra bill for me also I want the L-2feeds real time at a bargain price 60.00 a month is a little spicy.....
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