Result of EGM/Chairman's Stmt
InterX PLC
3 August 2000
INTERX PLC
EGM STATEMENT AND TRADING UPDATE
The Board of InterX plc ('InterX' or the 'Group')
announces that at the Extraordinary General Meeting of
the Company today the shareholder resolution approving
the disposal of Ideal Hardware Limited ('Ideal') to Bell
MicroProducts, Inc. was passed.
The following EGM statement was made at the meeting by
Richard Jewson, Chairman of InterX:
'
The disposal of Ideal means that the Group can now focus
entirely upon delivering its stated objective of becoming
a global software technology business.
Although our financial year does not end until tomorrow,
Friday, 4 August 2000, I would like to take this
opportunity to report the excellent progress that has
been made over the last three months. This is the first
full trading quarter since the completion of the merger
with Cromwell Media Limited, since renamed InterX
Technology Limited ('InterX Technology'). InterX
Technology is the basis for the future development of the
Group.
InterX Technology - Trading Review of the Quarter
New Business
In InterX's listing particulars dated 10 March 2000 (the
'Listing Particulars') one of the milestones set was to
win two new accounts per quarter in this financial year.
I am, therefore, pleased to be able to report that during
the current quarter we have won three new customers for
BladeRunner, our Internet application platform software
product, and, significantly, our first piece of repeat
business from an existing customer. All of these
customers fall within our current target markets of
financial services and media and publishing.
eFinancialNews
Launched in April of this year, eFinancialNews is the new
media business arm of Financial News, one of the UK's
leading financial publishing houses. eFinancialNews'
team of journalists provide daily news, analysis and
comment on European securities, fund management and
investment banking industries.
InterX Technology is working with the support of its
integrator partner, CMG Admiral (part of CMG plc), and
Abacus Software to expand eFinancialNews' online offering
using InterX Technology's BladeRunner Internet
application platform software product.
Sterling Group Publishing plc ('Sterling')
Sterling is an UK-listed publisher of business-to-
business reviews, journals and electronic media, designed
to match senior industry purchasing and decision-making
personnel with a wide range of international suppliers.
Sterling publishes over 100 separate printed products and
is an established Internet-based business-to-business
information provider, with a fast-growing portfolio of
successful industry web-sites.
InterX Technology is providing software and services to
support Sterling's strategy for the Internet - to develop
an enduring series of leading business-to-business sites
for specific international industry sectors. Nettec PLC
('Nettec') will provide some of the implementation
resources on the project.
ComputerWeekly.com Limited ('ComputerWeekly.com')
As part of its strategy to become a global software
company and in order to secure additional opportunities
for its software technology, the Group will, where
appropriate, take stakes in certain businesses. The Group
refers to these as leverageable investments. The first of
these is ComputerWeekly.com, a joint venture, announced
in May, between Reed Business Information, part of the
Reed Elsevier group, and InterX.
ComputerWeekly.com, of which InterX owns 25%, aims to
become the UK's leading portal for IT professionals. Its
content is derived from publications such as Computer
Weekly, MicroScope, The Var and Business & Technology.
InterX has injected its web-site, www.itnetwork.com, into
ComputerWeekly.com.
I am now pleased to report that InterX Technology is
providing additional BladeRunner software and services to
ComputerWeekly.com to construct its new IT portal web-
site.
Network Multimedia Television Limited ('NMTV')
We have commenced our first international project with an
existing customer, NMTV, the publisher of
www.silicon.com, which has resulted in the requirement
for an additional BladeRunner licence. Not only will this
project represent our first mainland European contract,
but it will also clearly demonstrate the cross-border
capabilities of our technology. InterX Technology's
integrator partner supporting this project is the Genisys
Group ('Genisys').
NMTV has been using BladeRunner technology for two years
in the UK. Its decision to implement its international
strategy on our platform is a significant endorsement of
the technology.
Integrator Partners
A critical element in our ability to scale the business,
both domestically and internationally, is the
establishment and development of a suitable network of
qualified integrator partners.
In the Listing Particulars we set a milestone of
developing two integrator partnerships by the end of the
financial year. I am happy to report that we have to date
developed partnerships with three integrators; CMG
Admiral, Nettec and Genisys.
CMG Admiral is one of the major forces in Information &
Communications Technology consulting and systems
integration. CMG Admiral is part of CMG plc, the FTSE 100
listed company, that employs more than 11,000 people in
13 countries. CMG Admiral is expanding its role and
offerings in the key mobile communications sector.
Nettec, recently listed on the London Stock Exchange,
delivers fully integrated e-business solutions. Nettec
applies the combined capabilities of business
consultancy, creative communication and technology to
build and manage successful e-businesses for its clients.
Genisys is acknowledged as a major supplier of enterprise-
wide solutions to corporate clients. With its new, state-
of-the-art development centre in Bangalore, India,
Genisys also provides a significant offshore application
software development capability.
We are currently collaborating with other consultancies
and integrators and I am confident that we will continue
to increase the number of such partners, both in the UK
and overseas.
Training Partner
The success of our integrator partner programme will
depend on the development of comprehensive integrator
training programmes and the implementation of an
international infrastructure to deliver them.
I am therefore delighted to announce that we have
recently appointed Azlan Group PLC ('Azlan') as our
exclusive training partner for Europe. Azlan is a leading
pan-European solutions group with a training services
division. Azlan has operations in fifteen European
countries and employs over 1,300 staff.
Azlan will deliver both staged technical training on
InterX Technology's products and developer certification
programmes to InterX Technology's integrator partners and
corporate customers.
Staffing, Recruitment and Training
Since February, and the appointment of Philip Crawford as
its Chairman and Rob Bruce as its Chief Executive
Officer, InterX Technology's staff have increased from 45
to over 120 - including 14 sales and marketing staff and
some 70 software engineers, developers and consultants.
Our recruitment and training programmes are proving to be
highly successful in providing us and our integrator
partners with high quality staff - a fundamental
requisite for assuring customer satisfaction and
subsequent site referenceability.
Business Prospects
The achievements of the last quarter are a clear
demonstration of:
- our technological capability
- the quality and professionalism of our staff
- our commitment to customer satisfaction, and
- the validity and value of leverageable investments.
I am therefore pleased to report that the sales prospects
for the Group are excellent and sales activity confirms
our belief in the substantial size of the market.
Our biggest challenge ahead is to ensure that we create a
process to maximise the scalability of our operations so
that we can service all our clients effectively and
professionally, wherever their business takes them.
We have recruited quality people and attracted leading
integrator and technology partners. With the appointment
of Azlan, as our training partner, to provide the skills'
'glue', InterX has now built the scalable infrastructure
which has the capability to support significant current
and future sales prospects.
Technological Advantage
BladeRunner (Version 4.3) is InterX Technology's current
Internet application platform software product for large,
mission-critical on-line services. Personalisation,
content management and transaction management are the
basic functionality requirements of any such product.
We believe that BladeRunner (Version 4.3) is superior to
its perceived competitors not only in its ability to
provide this basic functionality, but also through its
ability to support more quickly and effectively the
proliferation of new Internet-enabled devices coming to
the market - for example, mobile phones, personal digital
assistants and interactive digital television.
In our opinion this latter capability uniquely addresses
the most significant technological issue facing e-
business today. We refer to this technological advantage
as 'Speed to Device'. For a customer, 'Speed to Device'
provides it with the business advantage of being able to
offer on-line services, tailored to any new device, ahead
of its competition and without the costly requirement to
invest in significant system changes.
To date we have not lost a sale to a competitive
technology. Our contract wins have been against the
established international competition. We believe that
this is proof, not only of our product's capability, but
of the validity of our 'Speed to Device' advantage in the
developing market for e-business.
I am therefore pleased to announce that we anticipate
BladeRunner (Version 5) will shortly be released into
beta testing. Version 5 delivers significant productivity
improvements in the BladeRunner application development
cycle and even greater 'Speed to Device'.
Conclusion
This is an exciting time for InterX.
We have recently signed a lease for some 58,000 square
foot of offices at 27 West, Chiswick, London, on the M4
corridor. Not only will these offices provide us with the
significant benefits that accrue from having all staff in
one building, but they will also provide us with the
space and system infrastructure to accommodate our
growth.
We have put in place a scalable business model designed
to maximise the potential business return from this
growing market.
As previously announced, on Monday Philip Crawford
becomes Chief Executive of the Group.
In short, we have the technology, the business model and
the people to take advantage of the substantial
opportunities in our market. It is this that leads the
Board to view the future with great confidence.
With the sale of Ideal, InterX will now be eligible to be
classified in the software and computer services sector
and will be applying for inclusion within techMARK.
'
For further information, please contact:
InterX plc 020 7769 9200
James Wickes jwickes@interx.co.uk
Simon Barker sbarker@interx.co.uk
Simon Miesegaes smiesegaes@interx.co.uk
Philip Crawford pcrawford@interx.co.uk
Charterhouse Securities 020 7248 4000
Colin La Fontaine Jackson
Citigate Dewe Rogerson 020 7638 9571
Freida Davidson
Kylie Child