User:Spaffs

The business plan needs to be fomatted into the following headings, currently it does not flow well enough for a average person to grasp the product idea easily enough. This will be a deterient to an investor. THE IDEA OF A BUSINESS PLAN IS TO REITERATE A COMMON THEME THAT WE ARE SELLING THE INVESTORS, IN OUR CASE I PULLED OUT THE PEER-TO-PEER NETWORK, REMOTE HOSTING AND ONE-STOP-SHOP BY OFFERING A FULL HOST OF APPLICATIONS FROM THE ONE VENDOR. THE BUSINESS PLAN WILL BE LINKED BY USE OF THESE KEY WORDS AS YOU WILL SEE AS YOU READ THE BUSINESS PLAN I PUT TOGETHER.

1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Our vision is that corporations will take up software (applications) that are based on open source code at an increasing rate, because corporations are faced with exuberant fees (licenses etc) when buying propriety applications to run their businesses on.

Beyond the application element for companies is the hardware that they must maintain and upgrade to meet network demands that their applications require, this is added expenditure for companies.

Should the market place provide free, easy to use, feature and functionality rich applications based on open source code, competitive with what propriety applications offer, the market will arbitrage the price differentiation and make the move to open source code.

"BRAND" (insert name of product/company) will offer a remote website that provides a one-stop-shop hosting a comprehensive array of cutting edge free, easy to use, feature and functionality rich applications based on our revolutionary peer-to-peer open source code. Through the means of corporate accounts hosted on BRAND, BRAND will handle all the corporations’ applications needs at no charge. The site will enable employees to collaborate on single or multiple documents across all applications with multiple users, offer web mail, live chat, calendars etc that all employees can access interactively. The applications can also be tailored by the companies own IT department to better meet its needs, our outsourced to BRAND to customise for the companies specific needs.

BRAND will generate revenues through servicing, training and consulting fees. All these activities will be remotely provided to corporate clients by trained employees of BRAND. BRAND will have one main office per country where it will direct all these activities out of for each country respectively.

2 THE MANAGEMENT TEAM

{Each persons name involved in the business are to be noted with a }{brief overview of their education and work history along with a }{title. Respective title allocations that investors are concerned }{with are as follow. }

{CEO: The most knowledgable person of the company, guiding the }{businesses growth path. The CEO must have the capabilities to} {make decisive critical business decisions under pressure and with} {the knowledge he/she garnishes from his Board Of Directors (BOD).}

{COMPANY SECRETARY: handles most company matters pertaining to legal issues, company compliance and interacts with all BOD to ensure this - will be appointed by VC}.

{CIO: reports to the CEO with all operations pertaining to the }{Information technology side of the business.}

{CFO: reports to the CEO with all operations pertaining to the }{companys financial status.}

{Directors: sit on the board of directors if active in no-active} {directors, will provide company guidance and input to the CEO to }{assist in the daily running of the business, may also be involved }{in the day to day running of the business as the head of a }{division - if an active director.}

3 BUSINESS DESCRIPTION

3.1 SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT U.S.MARKET OVERVIEW

{currently writing up, needs to show to VC's that the Board of Directors hold adequate knowledge of its target market, its size and potential}

3.2 BUSINESS DESCRIPTION

"BRAND" is in the software development and software application services business. Currently no formal incorporated entity has been formed, as it is still within its seed stage. The proposed company structure is as a Limited Liability Company. This allows us to issue additional shares to raise capital. It also limits losses to actual funds invested in the company.

3.3 PRODUCT DESCRIPTION

BRAND is a remotely accessed free application service business that offers a central site where applications built upon open source code are hosted. Initial applications for use by companies will be; Organisational applications, Foreign Exchange Management System (FEMS), Treasury Management System, Investment Management Management System, Asset Management, Resource Allocation, Content Management and Digital asset managenent, Customer relations management and Business rules engine.

These applications offered by BRAND are built on a revolutionary network designed by BRAND. The nodel core (operating system) offers the rudimentary application development environment working on a generic self-organising peer-to-peer network. This network enables muliple users to interface with the same application in real time, across all BRAND's application.

Companies can either opt to work in real time on our host site, by means of a secure customer log in for a company and all its employees or they can download the software for use on their own servers.

Due to BRAND's applications being built on open source code, all our applications are customisable for the company, either internally or externally. At the companyes request BRAND will customise applications for a specific companies needs or assist a company in customising an application to better suit its needs.

3.3.1 PRODUCTS

Organisational applications (Calendar, Mail list, Contacts, Schedule, Task list etc.)

Foreign Exchange Management System (FEMS) The Foreign Exchange Management System is a module that will integrate naturally as a modular extension to the Cashflow Forecasting and Budgeting System that will make up one of the first applications developed using the nodal environment.

Treasury Management System The Treasury Management System would introduce the ability to produce Unit Trust Prices as well as more advanced Foreign Exchange products. These are the end result of producing a Trial Balance.

Investment Management Management System The Investment Management Management System has the same core components as what produced the previous 2 systems, but introduces new non-FX related Security types.

Asset Management The Asset Management system is one that tracks all of the assets within a company and treats them in an operational and accounting manner. Operational relates to the notification, actioning and recording of physical events (e.g. WOF on truck). Accounting refers to all the entries that are required as part of the process of normal accounting for assets. This is a substantive move from recording only cash based products/securities to also incorporating physical assets in an encompassing all asset management system.

Resource Allocation Similar to budgetting, but more general covering roles, reporting and prioritisation of processes, see also Wikipedia:Resource allocation

Content Management and Digital asset managenent This is part of the p2p nodal model but is an excellent revenue stream to have before the release. This area includes, content conversion, syncronisation and publishing, versioning, backup, redundancy, security, archiving and retreival.

Customer relations management This is another one which is very in vouge and yet easy to extend to from the core functionality.

Business rules engine This is another popular buzz phrase which we can use to describe the generic organisational processes and templates e.g. JBossRules (http://labs.jboss.com/portal/index.html?ctrl:id=page.default.info&project=jbossrules)

3.4 DISTRIBUTION AND MARKETING

BRAND is currently the sole developer of software running on its operating system. Once BRAND opens its code up to the public we forsee there being a rush to develop add-on applications and copy-cat services though. BRAND's distinct advantage is its product knowledge and lead time to market. BRAND see's distribution and marketing being a key element to obtaining and maintaining our distinct advantage.

3.4.1 Distribution

BRAND is an E-commerce business, with all product delivery conducted via the internet. Due to the business nature of BRAND, it does not require a tangible delivery of product, eliminating the costly logistical side of a bricks and mortar business.

All BRAND's products will be hosted on our company servers. Customer product delivery will be via download from BRAND's servers , and also run on our servers for companies to remote access allowing user domain mapping.

3.4.2 Marketing

Marketing generates brand awareness and demand, and in-turn drives sales. Without marketing a product's potential can not be realized. BRAND will utilize print and online mediums to generate brand recognition.

OBJECTIVES CORPORATE OBJECTIVES

-commerce for product delivery and post sales support eliminating the need for tangible office locations within all our target markets.

TACTICAL OBJECTIVES

PROGRAM OBJECTIVES Pricing Objectives

market share.

chargeable services. The fee schedule will be pay-per-service or annual surcharge.

Advertising and Promotional Objectives

-national companies to adopt our business tools through test phase-in periods. This will provide free global publicity for our product.

Sales and Distribution Objective

-commerce for product delivery and post sales support

COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS (Not SWOT ANALYSIS, just acknowledging our competition that exists)

PLEASE DELETE COMPANIES FROM THIS LIST OF THE TOP 500 U.S. SOFTWARE COMPANIES THAT ARE NOT A DIRECT OR INDIRECT THREAT (COMPANY WITH A COMPETITIVE PRODUCT).

IBM Symantec Novell Microsoft Computer Associates Network Associates Adobe Veritas Cisco Macromedia EMC Legato Corel Trend Micro Sun Compaq Hewlett Packard Crystal Decisions Executive Software NetManage NetIQ WRQ Autodesk Borland The Learning Company Attachmate Citrix Check Point FileMaker Hummingbird Sybase Intuit Nortel Lucent Nuance Pervasive Software RSA Security Vivendi Apple SCO Altiris Ulead EMC Axent Yosemite Technologies TOPICS Entertainment Broderbund Esker Intel St. Bernard Software IMSI Encore Business Objects Enterasys Ipswitch Yamaha Sunburst 3Com Riverdeep Extensis EMC Dantz Datawatch InstallShield CLARIION DISK ARRAYS Zebra Mortice Kern Systems InterAct Accessories Micrografx Panda Serena Red Hat Webgain Funk Software H&R Block Websense ScriptLogic JetForm Dragon Systems Aladdin Knowledge Systems GFI Software NovaStor AB Soft Transparent Hal Leonard Enfocus ACD Systems Connectix Wall Data BakBone Software Phoenix Technologies Epresence Netscape Sony Quest Software SurfControl Macmillan Laplink Software V Communications Allume Systems Bauschke & Associates Tilde SIA Network Computing Devices Kofax Real Networks Creative Labs Interact Commerce - Academic SpartaCom DataViz Individual FutureSoft N2h2 VMware WatchGuard Technologies Ectaco Tarantella Sage Rosetta Stone DK Multimedia Knowledge Adventure Ositis Roxio Active Voice Paragon Software Pinnacle DeLorme Storagetek Simon & Schuster Startly Technologies Caere Equisys Systran Cakewalk Disney SPSS ArcMedia Captaris Polycom Eurotalk Winternals Software Teklynx International Company Oracle Peachtree Software Ontrack MySoftware Mathsoft Eicon Wise Solutions ACI Infragistics Raxco Software Century NewTek Eastwest Multimedia 2000 Sonic TechSmith Activision Global Star Software Cosmi Gluon eSoft SGI / Silicon Graphics Clickaction Magix Pantone Second Nature Volera EZ Legal GlobalSCAPE Victory Pk Ware Power On ComponentOne Puma Technology BVRP Software Fogware OnDemand Markzware Miramar Greenstreet Software MPS Multimedia Quark Danware Wasp Keylogix International Lt Nova Development Visio A Lowly Apprentice Keystrokes Smith Micro Sonic Foundry Birch Design Farstone Technology Tom Snyder Productions Total Training Native Instruments LANSource Technologies Motorola Steinberg Strata TES Adaptec Artel Ehelp Intermec Lernout & Hauspie FrontRange Solutions BridgeHead Software ISI Thomson Scientific E-Book Systems, Inc. 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