| New York,
NY -- Medis Technologies Ltd. (NASDAQ:MDTL) (“Medis”) announced today that
the Company has made public a Letter to Shareholders from Medis Chairman
and CEO Robert K. Lifton. The letter is included in its entirety
in this press release below:
Dear Fellow Shareholder,
In speaking to some of our investors,
it became evident to me that in discussing our strategy regarding the “enterprise
market,” we had not described fully the breadth of that market and how
we intended to use the delivery of our Power Packs next month to access
that market. Since we consider this a prime market for our product and
since recent activities by major companies relating to that market emphasize
its implications for Medis, it may be worth while to revisit that topic
and explain our thinking more explicitly.
When we speak of the “enterprise
market,” we are referring to those companies who want to connect their
employees who work outside of a typical office setting, such as sales reps,
delivery people, technical teams and the like, with secure high-speed wireless
networks that provide access to business-to-business systems through the
use of wireless computing devices with high-capacity data storage. Many
companies use wireless devices to provide better customer service with
more effective allocation of resources and to enable field-based employees
to work more productively through real-time access to work orders, parts
lists and other essential back-office information. Real time wireless solutions
help streamline the supply chain, provide sales reps with crucial customer
information needed to increase sales and equip drivers and merchandisers
with the necessary tools to improve productivity. Obvious examples are
Federal Express, whose employees use about 80,000 hand held devices and
UPS, whose employees use approximately 90,000 devices.
It has been reported that companies
are increasingly using advanced software in hand held devices to manage
important elements of their business. A major impetus in this area, reflecting
the growing importance of this business model, is the large scale commitment
by Microsoft Corporation to the sale of its Windows Mobile™ 5.0 to enable
hand held devices to provide all of the capabilities available on desk
top and lap top computers. As noted by Mr. Pieter Knook, Senior Vice President
of Microsoft, (ZDNet Asia, May 12, 2005) “With the new platform release,
it is now easier to customize content and services that mobile operators
want to push out to their customers.” The goal for 2007 set by Microsoft’s
CEO, Steve Ballmer, is to have 100 million hand-held devices in the market
featuring the Windows Mobile™ 5.0 operating system.
As Mr. Knook pointed out in that
same interview, however, “the limited battery lifespan of a mobile device
is still the industry’s biggest challenge…Whilst we can dramatically improve
bandwidth, screen size storage capacities and so on, the one thing that
does not improve dramatically is the amount of battery capacity that is
available to us…The battery, ultimately becomes the biggest governor of
what is practically feasible to offer to people. You wouldn’t want a device
on which you can watch a video for four hours and then can’t make a phone
call after that.”
In our team’s meetings with the large
mobile operators in the US and Europe we were advised that the mobile operators
considered the enterprise market a very important part of their business.
Some of them indicated that based on the volume of data transmitted, the
enterprise customers were disproportionately heavy users of their services,
accounting for a significant portion of their revenues. That makes such
customers an attractive market on which the mobile operators focus and
over which they compete. For example, Cingular recently noted publicly
that it has some 1,700 sales people specifically devoted to “Business to
Business (B2B)” customers. Some of you may have seen the full page ad in
The Wall Street Journal (April 28, 2005, A13) from Cingular discussing
its relationship with the Taylor Made Company as an example of how it is
able successfully to service an enterprise market customer, “allowing its
representatives to maximize their sales by deploying a wireless solution
that automated the inventory process.” Indeed, Cingular has joined
with Microsoft in announcing their plan to collaborate with a host of device
manufacturers to make available the Windows Mobile™ operating system using
Cingular’s digital voice and data network. Cingular has made available
to its customers a portfolio of Windows Mobile™ based Smartphones, including
devices from Motorola and Audiovox, and also offers several PDAs running
Windows Mobile™ operating system software, including the first integrated
voice and data HP Pocket PC. Further to this point, on June 7th, Microsoft
announced an important new feature of Windows Mobile™ 5.0, namely the delivery
of e-mail to mobile devices without any action on the part of the user.
In the light of those facts - the
expanding ability to move much more sophisticated data using Windows Mobile™
5.0, the importance of the enterprise market to the mobile operators, including
the development of specific products for those customers, and the pressing
need for more battery life, as stated by Microsoft’s Pieter Knook - you
can readily understand our focus on that market as an exciting potential
for the purchase of our Power Pack products. We believe that our Power
Pack is uniquely able to provide a solution to the power needs of that
market. You can also see why we have focused so much attention on the mobile
operators who are competing for that market and given the size of their
enterprise market customers, and the frequent use of the handhelds, the
sales volume they potentially represent for Medis.
This may help better explain our
program as reflected in the Cooperation Agreement we just announced with
one major mobile operator. That program calls for us to deliver approximately
15 Power Pack units starting in middle of next month to each of the mobile
operators who enter into cooperation agreements with us. Each of those
units, with the ability to offer up to 15-20 hours of use time, can be
demonstrated by the mobile operator to decision makers at large companies
making up the enterprise market to allow them to experience the use of
our Power Pack. Even with only 15 Power Packs per mobile operator, we believe
that with this multiplier effect the market outreach in the enterprise
market can be quite broad.
By emphasizing the enterprise market,
I don’t want to minimize the importance of the other consumers served by
the mobile operators and the very broad consumer markets served by our
distributors- Kensington/ACCO, which includes coverage of the major big
box stores, ASE International, which covers some 60,000 store fronts of
drug store, convenience store and other chains and Superior Communications
which sells to stores operated by certain mobile operators. In addition
to delivery of Power Pack units to mobile operators, we have also scheduled
July delivery of a limited number of Power Pack units to our distributors
who plan to introduce them to some of the buyers for their major customers,
facilitating our outreach efforts in those markets, as well. A propos of
the consumer market, it is interesting to note that Sprint recently announced
an agreement with Sirius Satellite Radio to make satellite radio available
on its cell phones and Google services are now available on AT&T wireless
phones.
Finally, I should note that the units
being delivered next month are quite a bit smaller than any we have demonstrated
thus far. As I have advised you previously, the final market product will
be smaller even than these and is expected to be delivered to the appropriate
regulatory authorities as well as the mobile operators for testing this
October - November, 2005.
Sincerely,
Robert K. Lifton
Chairman & CEO
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