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Company Interview Excerpt
ROBERT VAN NAARDEN - AUTHENTIDATE INC (ADAT)


Full article published: 11/19/2001


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TWST: Could you begin with an overview of Authentidate, Inc.?
Mr. Van Naarden: The key issue is, we believe people should look seriously at this technology because there are significant market opportunities, opportunities that have been legitimized by a number of credible houses and their research, opportunities which I will discuss in detail. We believe we have a technology answer to address these opportunities that have been developing over the last 18 months. We have a proven management team in place, and a solid technology infrastructure. I'm going to give a little overview of the corporate entity: where we're taking a position in the marketplace and why, what we view as success factors, and some of the thoughts that keep us up at night. I'll also discuss the markets we're targeting, a couple other things. The key here is how the company is structured. There are really three entities in the company, under the AuthentiDate Holding Company, which used to be called BitWise Designs. Last March, we changed the name of the company simply to reflect this is where the emphasis of the company is going in the future. AuthentiDate's history goes back 15 years. Our origin is rooted, appropriately, in two companies. One represents our technological interests, and one business. DocStAR is our technological progenitor. DocStAR stands for Document Storage and Retrieval System, and it's a small, PC-based system, sold turnkey through office products dealers. DocStAR allows you to scan paper in, store the content electronically. Then, with some records management and work flow software, you can retrieve the content, manipulate it, and so on. DocStAR does at the low-end what a product like Documentum does at the enterprise-level. It's typically sold to small real estate offices, small law offices, small insurance brokers, those types of organizations. Where space is a premium, you want to get everything into electronic form. DocStAR is a viable, ongoing business. It represents about $8 million annually to us in revenues and it's profitable. On the business side there is CPI, the second entity. CPI, which stands for Computer Professionals Incorporated, is a classic systems integrator. Suppose you want a systems infrastructure consisting of 50 PCs with a local area network, a server, an ISP connection, tons of software. CPI installs this infrastructure, they upgrade it, they support it, and they replace it when the need arises. They focus only on the upstate New York area: Albany, the capital region of New York, western Vermont, and western Massachusetts. CPI is the largest systems integrator in the region; they enjoy a great reputation. They have about 350 customers, big names ' GE Research, Berkshire Insurance, First Albany, Booz Allen, and lots of state government agencies in New York. So that's the corporate structure. Again, AuthentiDate originally came out of the DocStAR business technology-wise. Actually, when you think about it, if you store something away electronically, the first thing you're going to ask yourself when you pull it out is, 'Is that what I put in?' That's where the fundamental idea for AuthentiDate originated. But we felt that it had much more applicability than just this DocStAR business, so we took the concept to the next level, separately. AuthentiDate is where the future of the company is focused today; it's where all the resources are going, where all the attention is going. AuthentiDate has cultivated a number of significant joint ventures in the last year. Every time we find a business opportunity that makes sense for us, we don't find, necessarily, a company that's already in that space which may want to enhance their product by using our service. So we go off and create a joint venture; we do it ourselves. In three cases, there are joint venture companies that we've created, in the last year, to pursue a market opportunity. I'll elaborate. AuthentiDate DE is our German joint venture with a guy by the name of Lars Windhorst. This name probably doesn't mean anything to you. Lars Windhorst is like the Michael Dell of Germany. He started the PC manufacturing business at the age of 13 in his garage, and now he's 23 and he's a multi-billionaire ' that kind of guy. We did a joint venture there and we have accomplished three objectives so far. One, because of the fact that we didn't have to put any cash up, just our technology (they provided the cash to start the company), we were able to get a market presence in Western Europe much faster than we would have normally been able to expand there. Two, they had a bunch of very serious and dedicated software developers who we were able to utilize part-time here and there to develop our product. We had much lower per-head cost than we could do here in New York. And three, probably most importantly, because of our presence in Germany, we are now the first commercial company that has been certified as compliant with the German electronic signature law. That's significant in that it's one of the toughest laws in the world, much tougher than here in the United States.

 

Tickers included in this excerpt: ADAT

 

For more information call (212) 952 7433. The Wall Street Transcript does not endorse any of the comments made by interviewees, and does not make stock recommendations.