Some notes....
Dave spent the first part on Noveda. Up until early December both parties expected to close before end of December. Two weeks before end of December Noveda proposed an entirely new deal. Bottom line was, Buddy declined the new terms and terminated -
Not in Buddy or Buddy shareholders best interests.
"We looked at where we were and the pace of evolution of the market and decided we didn't need to do it. We were not betting the farm on Noveda closing, or intending to flip Buddy into Noveda. We were more interested in the customer base than the technology."
Upside of not proceeding is that Buddy will not spend US$4 million on the technology transfer/upgrade required if the deal had proceeded, plus we have saved $24 million in stock dilution - 500 million shares at current prices. Significant dilution for shareholders.
Noveda is not a game-breaker for Buddy. The volume of potential data loss from Noveda would not be substantial
or material in terms of the overall data volumes Buddy is currently processing, and will be processing going forward as the business expands.
Re Noveda client base, Enterprise Grade and Government clients remain a very tight fit for Buddy in the Smart City vertical market. This will be the main focus on investment in 2017. More detail to come on this next week when Dave releases the EOY Report.
Buddy will not be leaving the Infrastructure Monitoring space. On the contrary, they are focusing sales efforts in the very near term with concrete news to share at the end of the Mobile World Congress, towards the end of Feb.
Significant dialogues underway with multiple large enterprise Building Operations Management Directors. Buddy value proposition is very relevant. Fills a significant market gap - and need - for real-time data that is immediately consumable. Not EOM reports, as currently provided.
M&A is not a priority. For now - 2017 - priority is to bring product to market.
Parse on Buddy traffic will substantially offset the loss of Noveda traffic, and in fact surpass it. Parse traffic continues to grow strongly. Feedback from Facebook confirms there are still a significant number of apps/developers who remain oblivious to impending Appageddon. Peak uptake is yet to come. Good news for Buddy.
More detailed news on Parse uptake next week. Previously they thought peak uptake would occur between Late November and January. Have now learned from customers and
Facebook that the best is yet to come in terms of peak traffic. Dave started to talk specifically about traffic numbers then stopped, saying,
"No, I'll leave it until next week."
From the comments Dave made, they are clearly in continuing close dialogue with FB.
My interpretation was that he had some good numbers to talk about, possibly in terms of Enterprise Grade clients transferring to Parse on Buddy.
Generally, on the core business Buddy Platform pipeline, they are now engaging with prospects who are in a position and have the budget to buy, not just tyre-kicking. These prospects have been working through the pipeline for several months. This demonstrates a significant shift in market sentiment/development from a year ago, and the maturation/acceptance of - and need for - the type of solutions Buddy provides
The key takeout from the new Thor Industries deal is that Thor were looking for a solution which Buddy was able to provide. Most competitors are out there trying to sell product, and are not solution-driven to meet client needs. More trying to fit their product offering into the clients existing structure. Very bullish on what this means for Buddy going forward. Buddy now have a solution-driven offering that provides real, demonstrable value to prospective clients.
In reply to a question about whether they are close to finalising other similar size deals as Thor,
"Yes, absolutely. Over coming months more deals will absolutely close."
They are ahead of plan on every metric - data traffic, devices connected and revenue.
The main business focus for 2017 will be the Smart Cities and Connected Infrastructure vertical underpinned by Buddy Platform.
More news to come starting next week with a Parse update, EOY update - both at the same time? - then 4C end of January, with further "concrete" news in Feb after Mobile World Congress.
There was more detail, but I kept getting interrupted. Hopefully others can fill in what I missed.
All in all, and in the circumstances, an upbeat discussion. IMHO
