The Government has offered Australia's three mobile operators, and vividwireless, renewal of their existing spectrum allocated on 15 year licences in the late 90s and early 2000s at set prices, while the Government expects to rake in $3 billion.
The potential of the technology clearly impressed the venture capitalists at a time when hight tech was not exactly flavour of the month. Shortly after the product launch Norwood received $A27.4m in funding from Deutsche Bank Capital Venture Partners, Cazenove Private Equity, Newport Technology Fund, existing investors Argo Global Capital and Innovacom and a number of private investors.
After a backdoor listing in late 2002 and raising another $2.5 million Norwood Systems (ASX: NSA) was talking up its prospects and name-dropping big time listing a string of multinational as potential partners or customers: Alcatel, LogicaCMG, Samsung, Avaya. In November 2005 the company forecast revenue of between $7.5m and $13m in calendar 2006 with Avaya and Samsung deals alone expected to contribute between $3m and $5m and $1.5 and $3m respectively.
Unfortunately Østergaard's optimism was misplaced as was that of the venture capitalists. WiFi has very much usurped the role developed for Bluetooth in EnterpriseMobility, despite the latter's claimed advantages. So where is Norwood today? To put it bluntly: in dire straits.
It has just submitted its August cashflow statement to the ASX. This showed receipts for the month of $43,000, outgoings of $124,000 just to pay its staff, plus another $94,000 of working capital, giving it a net cash outflow for the month of $174,000 and leaving it with just $130,000 in the bank. If it maintained the same rate of cash burn in September the kitty must now be empty. Under "financing facilities available" the cashflow report listed nothing.
The company has around 53 million shares issued which on 29 September were worth two cents each. So If anyone would like $23 million worth of Bluetooth R&D they might get it for a song, Or if they wait a little longer for even less. Sad. A couple of years ago so much seemed not just possible but close to being achieved.
David Bass
| ComOps, a leading Australian provider of business software products and services, has won a competitive tender to deploy its Salvus safety, r…
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