I retired from personal blogging in July 2008 but you can find me over at blog.xero.com
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Read this latest announcement:
Further findings from the PLS Strategic Review
Findings from the strategic review now showed that the all contracts previously negotiated between the company and various telecoms operators were mainly for fixed line numbers, making them unsuitable for the Plus SMS business.
“Naturally it is of serious concern to find we are holding fixed line contracts which we cannot commercialise in their present form. However we are making the renegotiation of all contracts a key priority and we are confident of progress.”
The company has also further clarified the status of two specific contracts which were referred to in its 1 September 2006 announcement.
A contract with Pak Telecom, originally announced in October 2005, is not valid as Pak Telecom did not have the rights to the number ranges covered by the contract and had only committed to seek to acquire those rights which it was not able to do. While Plus SMS is in negotiations with Pak Telecom, there currently appears to be little prospect of securing a viable substitute contract in the near future.
In relation to the ISTV contract, which was originally announced in March 2006, the agreement did not provide Plus SMS with the rights necessary to derive any value out of those contracts.
Plus SMS therefore confirms the 1 September 2006 statement that the contracts have lapsed and now have no value to the company. The company did not own the rights necessary to derive any value out of those contracts and could not therefore have delivered any value from them.
Brooks says the company’s review has also looked at the feasibility of international vanity short codes in the Plus SMS business. Codes of less than seven digits work on a national basis. However current technology requirements mean codes for international use need to be seven digits or more. This means that the management team will continue to evaluate the value and potential use of existing vanity codes.
So the technology did not ever make sense. Yet some shareholders sold $10m of stock (before any revenue). This is crime.
blog
three words: told them so!
These muppets have screwed this investment community for ICT concepts in this country. I am really f&*ked off…
Sadly the pissing in the pond from PLS has caused an incredible environmental disaster. I feel the industry needs to tell everyone that we all thought they were clowns to begin with.
I am still fuming and gutted…
I was recently in the paper making comment on this and an area that has been overlooked (fortunately no one has tried to sue me yet). Not only have PlusSMS put in jeapardy access to investment for companies in the mobile space and cast dout over the viability of a growing industry, the media and business community seems to have overlooked that EVERYONE knew they were going no where. Both the broking houses and the stock exchange expressed concern about their viability and yet they continued to pormote the share and take fees etc from trasnactions that have ultimately lost some people reasonable sums of money I suspect. There needs to be accountability within these organisations to prevent this becoming a way of living for some people - misleading others to make a profit.