![]() |
| Types of Fuel Cells | The Basics | Fuel Cell News | Basics on Hydrogen | Search | |
|
|
Dear Fellow Shareholder,
This is an appropriate time to
report to you on the meetings that our
team had during these past few
weeks with mobile operators in the
United States, Great Britain,
Germany and France and what we learned
from those meetings. The operators
we met have a combined subscriber
base of over 270 million people.
In this letter I'd like to discuss
the characteristics of the Power
Packs that we demonstrated; the
recognized need for our Power
Pack product and the absence of any
competition; and the plans for
moving forward to achieve sales of
Power Packs to these mobile operators.
The Power Pack
The Power Pack that was demonstrated
at the meetings was a fully
functional model. It was smaller
and lighter than the Power Packs
demonstrated at our conference
on March 16th, showing the operators
that we are well along the path
to the expected size and weight of our
mass production Power Pack product.
This product has the power
management system, that enables
our product to work with a broad array
of portable electronic devices,
and the DC-to-DC converter both in the
form of an ASIC (Application
Specific Integrated Circuit) attached to
it. As we advised the operators,
in July 2005, we plan to provide them
with Power Packs that are about
twenty five percent smaller than this
one with an ASIC that will be
separate from the Power Pack. In the
final, mass production Power
Pack product, the ASIC is planned to be
replaced by a chip the size of
a fingernail attached to the adjustable
cord.
The Power Packs operated successfully,
powering every device that we
were given. They did so in every
orientation and with no discernible
heat. In one case, the operator
had mechanically emptied a cell phone
battery and asked to see the
Power Pack performance. The Power Pack
immediately started the cell
phone; allowing it to dial out and in
less than 90 minutes of charging
had filled three of the five bars
showing battery power. In another
case, to the operator's surprise,
the Power Pack charged a new,
heavy power cell phone and video device
not yet on the market, delivering
a level of power well beyond their
expectations.
The Market Need - The Absence of Competition
The discussions with the mobile
operators bore out our own views,
which I have previously presented
to you, regarding the market need
for a power source to augment
the power available from current and
future portable electronic devices.
We learned that every one of the
operators is striving to increase
Average Revenue Per User (ARPU). It
is very costly in advertising
expenditures and phone subsidies for the
operators to add each new subscriber;
and in order to increase their
revenues and earnings they are
trying to increase each subscriber's
use of the device. The way they
seek to do this is to add more and
more capabilities to the cell
phones and create more convergent
devices. The markets in Europe
are well ahead of those in the US, just
as the markets in Japan are ahead
of Europe with respect to the
capabilities and uses of the
portable devices. In Japan and Europe,
more and more devices are 3G
with expanded capabilities such as video,
music, TV games, conferencing
and expanded internet use, well beyond
just using the phones for communications.
The US operators are just
beginning to offer their subscribers
these capabilities. All of the
operators recognize that those
capabilities require more battery life
to satisfy their customers. Particularly,
this is the case of the
"enterprise market" where the
customers' employees are using the
devices many hours a day to get
and transmit information.
To put this in a concrete context
let me note that one of the
operators showed our team a product
they intend to offer for use in
video conferencing which has
a battery life of only one-half hour per
charge. In Japan, cell phone
batteries frequently last only 40 minutes
before requiring recharging,
which explains why Tokyo has charging
kiosks in the street where people
pay to charge their devices.
Similarly, in London you can
charge your phone at a cost of around
$4.00 for fifteen minutes in
a charging booth, and a company in New
York City has been offering charging
services at a cost of 50 cents
per minute.
Significantly, we also learned
from these mobile operators that they
have seen nothing from any battery
manufacturers that would solve
their power problems and that
Medis is the only company that has
approached them with a working
product capable of powering their
devices. They also told us that
they would be averse to offering
their customers any product having
a high concentration of methanol
because of the flammable nature
of methanol and the fact that it
cannot be used in an airplane
cabin.
The Plans for Moving Forward
Every mobile operator our team
met evinced an interest in moving
forward with us on a program
that would have as its endgame their
purchase of Power Packs from
us. Our objective now, as quickly as we
can, is to move towards agreements
with those operators with the aim
of getting orders from them for
sales of the Power Packs. Under these
agreements, we would provide
the operators with opportunities to test
our Power Pack products in their
laboratories, and work with them to
showcase the Power Packs within
their companies and to their large,
enterprise customers.
At the same time, we are reaching
out to other mobile operators whom
we did not previously contact,
in Asia, South America, the Middle East
and other parts of Europe to
engage them in a similar process of
viewing our Power Packs and starting
down the path of becoming our
customers. All of these intense
trips are not easy and on behalf of
all of us shareholders, I want
to thank our team for their efforts and
commitment to our sales program.
Currently, we are reviewing the
various bids and different approaches
of potential contract manufacturers.
We intend to select a contract
manufacturer in May 2005 which
we will announce at that time.
Finally, be assured that every
member of the Medis team is fully
dedicated to the success of our
company and the realization of the
values to which we aspire.
Sincerely,
Robert K. Lifton
Chairman & CEO
|
|