More Articles *Will This Lion Ever Roar?	Go Fiche! The Rise of CybeRecord By Soula Jones 3.1.2000 We Americans are stellar record-keepers. We have preserved more than 500 billion data files on some type of film (including microfiche), says a 1997 study by the Giga Information Group. Now, given the advent of the Internet, a bulk of that info is likely to be digitized so it can be stored and accessed on the web.      And that's where CybeRecord (NASDAQ OTC: CYRD) comes in. This is a development stage company (no revenue), headed by a bunch of "Golden Guys," seasoned tech-marketing execs in their fifties or sixties. On Feb. 16, 2000, CybeRecord launched its first and only product: test versions of "ScanServer" for monthly lease. The lease will depend on the number of scanners a customer requires and a charge for each image scanned (1 to 3 cents). Mininum monthly charge is likely to be around $3,000.      What's the potential market? The mid-range estimate is that some 13,000 scanners will be required to digitize the 500 billion records on film (Giga Group numbers). CybeRecord thinks it can capture 10% of this market in the next four years, which it estimates would translate into some $97 million in revenue (over four years). Major potential clients will include U.S. government agencies, police precincts, insurance companies.    Since there's not much, if any, independent research yet available on CybeRecord, we turned to the company's latest SEC filings for more info. Here's what we found:	CybeRecord www.cyberecord.com Address: 10900 N.E. 8th St. Bellevue, WA 98004 Phone: (425) 990-5920 Stock 52-Week High/Low: $7.00/$0.50 Shares outstanding: 15.4 million (executives and directors own about 28%) Note: CybeRecord was set up in 1997 (by merging into a publicly traded shell company), and so far it has a very small, if any, following on Wall Street. That's because the shares do not trade on NASDAQ; they're listed on the Over-the-Counter Bulletin Board.
Copyright 2000 Seattle24x7.com All Rights Reserved	The Competition      There's direct competition from two companies, both of which were recently acquired: Sun Rise Imaging (where CybeRecord's CEO James Ryan used to work) and Mekel. To get one of their scanners, you have to either purchase ($50,000 to to $160,000 each) or arrange a lease through a third-party. CybeRecord thinks it has an advantage because it will be more convenient. It will lease directly to its clients (no middlemen involved), and it says its machines require no setup or special training. The user can leave after loading in the film or fiche.      CybeRecord, which has filed for several patents, says its scanner is superior because among other things it helps improve image quality (by taking out speckles, scratches, uneven background shading), and makes future indexing easier. VP of Engineering Glenn Kimball, has more than 20 years experience developing imaging products for the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Defense Dept. Marek Niczyporuk, Director of Imaging Systems, is a leading computer-imaging scientist. Customer Relations      The billing is pretty straight forward: Software installed on CybeRecord scanners reports on how many different files were scanned, and every two months the machine's clock has to be reset by CybeRecord via modem. Customers who haven't paid their bills can be cut off. To offer data indexing and online storage to its customers, CybeRecord says it will forge alliances with major companies that do that sort of thing.      The company is not short on marketing expertise. Among other things, President and CEO James Lucas was VP of advertising and public relations at General Electric, and before joining CybeRecord he was at Ziff-Davis and Sun Rise Imaging (the CybeRecord competitor). On the Board is Dee Cravens, who among other things was Sun Microsystems' director of corporate marketing, where he claims to have authored the slogan: "The network is the computer." Soula Jones is Content Chief at Seattle24x7.com