Post by sandi66 on Sept 18, 2010 11:01:12 GMT -5
GeckoSystems Expands Transparency for GCKO Stockholders
CONYERS, GA--(Marketwire - September 15, 2010) - GeckoSystems Intl. Corp. (PINKSHEETS: GCKO) reported today that over 80% of their nearly 1,400 stockholders hold 500,000 shares or less representing nearly 50% of all freely traded shares. The average holding for all GCKO investors is slightly over 88,000 shares each.
GeckoSystems is a dynamic leader in the emerging mobile robotics industry revolutionizing their development and usage with "Mobile Robot Solutions for Safety, Security and Service™."
"We are very appreciative of the over 1,000 small investors that have been patient in the face of massive naked shorting of GCKO stock. Typically these predatory brokers and/or brokerages short our stock down nearly each and every time we have a press release. Certainly as we continue, as most small businesses, to recover from the Great Recession brought upon us by de facto Wall Street greed, this is nonetheless a painful artifact to endure during these times of continued economic uncertainty. What is not uncertain is GCKO management's commitment to thwart these economic predators by exposing their nefarious activities and by reassuring our stockholders that the vast majority of them are 'long,'" stated Martin Spencer, President/CEO, GeckoSystems.
Continuing, there are only 17 shareholders with 1,000,000 or more shares. They hold over 36% of all stock in the public float with over 35 million shares total with an average holding of nearly 2.1 million shares. This group is pretty well known to management and virtually all are considered "long."
The remaining grouping is those stockholders with less than 1,000,000 shares, but 500,000 or more. This group of 24 shareholders hold slightly over 16% of all stock in the public float with nearly 16 million shares total with an average holding of about 650 thousand each.
It has come to our attention -- not infrequently -- that in recent weeks and months GCKO stock has been massively shorted. However, as a company, we cannot do much directly about the naked shorting of our stock aside from reporting it to FINRA and/or the SEC. However, indirectly we would ask those stockholders that are truly 'long' to contact their broker immediately and ask that their GCKO stock be placed on their "no loan" list forthwith.
A little over a month ago, on the same date, GeckoSystems management secured lists from Broadridge and The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) that quantify how many GCKO shares are held by which brokers and/or clearing houses. Unless naked shorting is occurring, the quantities of stock held by the brokerages should be the same, or nearly so, from both Broadridge's "NOBO" list and DTCC's "SPR" list.
DTCC, through its subsidiaries, provides clearance, settlement and information services for equities. Broadridge provides mission-critical products and services for securities processing, clearing & outsourcing, and investor communication.
The eight brokerages/clearing houses holding the most GCKO shares for clients on this same date last month were:
Brown Brothers/Harriman (NOBO: 500,000; SPR: 3,744,357),
Charles Schwab (NOBO: 9,327,536; SPR: 9,979,476),
E*Trade (NOBO: 12,719,363; SPR: 12,859,605),
National Financial Services (NOBO: 11,593,340; SPR: 11,714,740),
Penson Financial (NOBO: 8,345,263; SPR: 8,497,990),
RBC Capital Markets (NOBO: 8,190,646; SPR: 6,269,446),
Scottrade (NOBO: 14,401,790; SPR: 15,018,489),
and TD Ameritrade (NOBO: 18,694,690 ; SPR: 21,738,670).
A cursory perusal reveals that five of the foregoing are "pretty good." The other three depict significant differences in their GCKO holdings to Broadridge and DTCC. Some GCKO investors may wish to notify their broker to place their GCKO stock on their "no loan" list to coerce their brokerage into not using their personally held GCKO shares for any shorting whatsoever of GCKO stock, especially if your stock is being held by any of the less rigorously compliant brokerages and/or clearing houses noted in the preceding.
"By making more company information publicly available as to stock structure, beneficial owners, etc, GeckoSystems is attempting to foster an efficient secondary trading market and provide greater understanding of our business model for investors, advisors, and regulators in the OTC market," said Martin Spencer, President/CEO, GeckoSystems. "We hope that our meeting the Current Information guidelines will allow us to better satisfy the needs of our stakeholders by providing high quality disclosure to investors via Pink Sheets."
The term "OTC securities" is a catchall phrase for any equity security that is not listed on a U.S. stock exchange. The OTCQX and Pink Sheets marketplaces constitute, by dollar volume, the third largest U.S. liquidity pool for trading public company shares, after The NASDAQ Stock Market, Inc. (NASDAQ) and The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).
Late this past August, GeckoSystems announced that its stock is now quoted in the U.S. over-the-counter (OTC) markets, on the Pink Sheets "Current Information" tier, under the ticker symbol GCKO.
In the last four years GeckoSystems secured its trading symbol, GCKO, by satisfying FINRA's 15c2-11 requirements. Subsequently GeckoSystems became DTC eligible and a DRS participant to further enhance stockholder liquidity and value. Now GeckoSystems has satisfied Pinksheets requirements to be designated: Current Information.
Due to the need for equity financing for high growth firms, GeckoSystems has worked for over ten years to become fully reporting as soon as financially viable. In fact, the Company has been successfully audited twice, for two year periods each, and found to be fully compliant under thorough outside financial audits prepared by SEC certified CPA firms with the Financial Accounting Standards Board's (FASB's) generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP).
"Due to the level of risk inherent in high tech, emerging market Development Stage firms such as ours, especially during this Great Recession, we understand clearly that only equity (not debt) instruments can provide sufficient return on investment (ROI) for investors to assume the risk of purchasing any high tech, emerging market stock such as GCKO stock. Hence our long time efforts in this regard, and determination to continue our move upward to not only a more pronounced domestic stock exchange, but also those with international reach, such as OTCQX," observed Spencer.
GeckoSystems received their Pink Sheet trading symbol, GCKO, from FINRA as a result of satisfying all their due diligence requirements from the filing of a Form 15c2-11. The Company has no unaccounted for, or otherwise missing, shares outstanding and issued. "We worked for nearly a year in preparing our initial 15c2-11 submission to, and addressing the comments of, FINRA prior to their issuance of our trading symbol, GCKO. We received our trading symbol, GCKO, from FINRA in September of 2007. In order to enable electronic trading we became DTC eligible in January of 2008. As a DRS Participant, the ability to trade GCKO stock electronically is even more streamlined, efficient, transparent, and reliable," stated Spencer.
DRS provides for the electronic direct registration of securities in an investor's name on the books of the transfer agent or issuer. It allows shares to be transferred between a transfer agent and a broker electronically through the industry's DRS Profile Systems. Historically, investors hold their shares either in "street name" with their broker, or they are "registered shareholders" and have a certificate. Consequently, the Company is in a position, as a DRS participant, to readily identify those parties engaging in "naked short selling" of GCKO stock.
"We will continue to do everything in our power to be completely, but prudently, transparent with our shareholders. We wish to assure our stockholders that this greater efficiency in the marketplace for our stock will further enhance the value and liquidity of GCKO stock and increase the ROI for them as we continue in our efforts to move upward to more pronounced domestic and international stock exchanges," reflected Spencer.
About GeckoSystems International Corporation:
Since 1997, GeckoSystems has developed a comprehensive, coherent, and sufficient suite of hardware and software inventions to enable a new type of home appliance (a personal robot) the CareBot™, to be created for the mass consumer marketplace. The suite of primary inventions includes: GeckoNav™, GeckoChat™ and GeckoTrak™.
The primary market for this product is the family for use in eldercare, care for the chronically ill, and childcare. The primary distribution channel for this new home appliance is the thousands of independent personal computer retailers in the U.S. The manufacturing infrastructure for this new product category of mobile service robots is essentially the same as the personal computer industry. Several outside contract manufacturers have been identified and qualified their ability to produce up to 1,000 CareBots per month within four to six months.
The Company is market driven. At the time of founding, over twelve years ago, the Company did extensive primary market research to determine the demographic profile of the early adopters of the then proposed product line. Subsequent to, and based on that original market research, they have assembled numerous focus groups to evaluate the fit of the CareBot personal robot into the participant's lives and their expected usage. The Company has also frequently employed the Delphi market research methodology by contacting and interviewing senior executives, practitioners, and researchers knowledgeable in the area of elder care. Using this factual basis of internally performed primary and secondary market research, and third party research is the statistical substance for the Company's sales forecasts.
Not surprisingly the scientific statistical analyses applied revealed that elderly over sixty-five living alone in metropolitan areas with broadband Internet available and sufficient household incomes to support the increased costs were identified as those most likely to adopt initially. Due to the high cost of assisted living, nursing homes, etc. the payback for a CareBot™ is expected to be only six to eight months while keeping elderly care receivers independent, in their own long time homes, and living longer due to the comfort and safety of more frequent attention from their loved ones.
"We project the available market size in dollars for cost effective, utilitarian, multitasking eldercare personal robots in 2011 to be $74.0B, in 2012 to be $77B, in 2013 to be $80B, in 2014 to be $83.3B, and in 2015 to be $86.6B. With market penetrations of 0.03% in 2011, 0.06% in 2012, 0.22% in 2013, 0.53% in 2014, and 0.81% in 2015, we will anticipate CareBot sales, from this consumer market segment, only, of $22.0M, $44.0M, $176M, $440.2M, and $704.3M, respectively. We expect these sales despite -- and perhaps because of -- the present recession due to pent up demand for significant cost reduction in eldercare expenses," opined Spencer.
The foregoing forecasts do not include sales in non-metropolitan areas; elderly couples over 65 (only elderly living alone are in these forecasts); those chronically ill -- regardless of age -- or elderly living with their adult children.
The Company's "mobile robot solutions for safety, security and service™" are appropriate not only for the consumer, but also professional healthcare, commercial security and defense markets. Professional healthcare require cost effective, timely errand running, portable telemedicine, etc. Homeland Security requires cost effective mobile robots to patrol and monitor public venues for weapons and WMD detection. Military users desire the elimination of the "man in the loop" to enable unmanned ground and air vehicles to not require constant human control and/or intervention.
The Company's business model is very much like that of an automobile manufacturer. Due to the final assembly, test, and shipping being done based on geographic and logistic realities; strategic business-to-business relationships can range from private labeling to joint manufacturing and distribution to licensing only.
Several dozen patent opportunities exist for the Company due to the many innovative and cost effective breakthroughs embodied not only in GeckoNav, GeckoChat, and GeckoTrak, but also in additional, secondary systems that include: GeckoOrient™, GeckoMotorController™, the GeckoTactileShroud™, the CompoundedSensorArray™, and the GeckoSPIO™.
The present senior management at GeckoSystems has over thirty-five years experience in consumer electronics sales and marketing and product development. Senior managers have been identified for the areas of manufacturing, marketing, sales, and finance.
While GeckoSystems has been in the Development Stage, the Company has accumulated losses to date in excess of six million dollars. In contrast, the Japanese government has spent one hundred million dollars in grants (to Sanyo, Toshiba, Hitachi, Fujitsu, NEC, etc.) over the same time period to develop personal robots for their eldercare crisis, yet no viable solutions have been developed.
GeckoSystems is the first mobile robot developer in the world to begin actual in-home eldercare evaluation trials.
What Does a CareBot Do for the Care Giver?
The short answer is that it decreases the difficulty and stress for the caregiver that needs to watch over Grandma, Mom, or other family members most, if not much, of the time day in and day out due to concerns about their well being, safety, and security.
But, first let's look at some other labor saving, automatic home appliances most of us use routinely. For example, needing to do two or more necessary chores and/or activities at the same time, like laundering clothes and preparing supper.
The automatic washing machine needs no human intervention after the dirty clothes are placed in the washer, the laundry powder poured in, and the desired wash cycle set. Then, this labor saving appliance runs automatically until the washed clothes are ready to be placed in another labor saving home appliance, the automatic clothes dryer. While the clothes are being washed and/or dried, the caregiver prepares supper using several time saving home appliances like the microwave oven, "crock" pot, blender, and conventional stove, with possible convection oven capabilities.
After supper, the dirty pots, pans, and dishes are placed in the automatic dishwasher to be washed and dried while the family retires to the den to watch TV, and/or the kids to do homework. Later, perhaps after the kids have gone to bed, the caregiver may then have the time to fold, sort, and put up the now freshly laundered clothes.
So what does a CareBot do for the caregiver? It is a new type of labor saving, time management automatic home appliance.
For example, the care giver frequently feels time stress when they need to go shopping for 2 or 3 hours, and are uncomfortable when they have to be away for more than an hour or so. Time stress is much worse for the caregiver with a frail elderly parent that must be reminded to take medications at certain times of the day. How can the caregiver be away for 3-4 hours when Grandma must take her prescribed medication every 2 or 3 hours? If the caregiver is trapped in traffic for an hour or two beyond the 2 or 3 they expected to be gone, this "time stress" can be very difficult for the caregiver to moderate.
Not infrequently, the primary caregiver has a 24 hour, 7 days a week responsibility. After weeks and weeks of this sometimes tedious, if not onerous routine, how does the caregiver get a "day off?" To bring in an outsider is expensive (easily $75-125 per day for just 8 hours) and there is the concern that medication will be missed or the care receiver have an accident requiring immediate assistance by the caregiver, or someone they must designate. And the care receiver may be very resistant to a "stranger" coming in to her home and "running things."
So what is it worth for a care receiver to have an automatic system to help take care of Grandma? Just 3 or 4 days a month "off" on a daylong shopping trip, a visit with friends, or just take in a movie would cost $225-500 per month. And that scenario assumes that Grandma is willing to be taken care of by a "stranger" during those needed and appropriate days off.
So perhaps, an automatic caregiver, a CareBot, might be pretty handy, and potentially very cost effective from the primary caregiver's perspective.
What Does a CareBot Do for the Care Receiver?
It's a new kind of companion that always stays close to them enabling family and friends to care for them from afar. It tells them jokes, retells family anecdotes, reminds them to take medication, reminds them that family is coming over soon (or not at all), recites Bible verses, plays favorite songs and/or other music. It alerts them when unexpected visitors, or intruders are present. It notifies designated caregivers when a potentially harmful event has occurred, such as a fall, fire in the home, or simply been not found by the CareBot for too long. It responds to calls for help and notifies those that the caregiver determined should be immediately notified when any predetermined adverse event occurs.
The family can customize the personality of the CareBot. The voice's cadence can be fast or slow. The intonation can be breathy, or abrupt. The voice's volume can range from very loud to very soft. The response phrases from the CareBot for recognized words and phrases can be colloquial and/or unique to the family's own heritage. The personality can range from brassy to timid depending on how the care giver, and others appropriate, chooses it to be.
Generally, the care receiver is pleased at the prospect of family being able to drop in for a "virtual visit" using the onboard webcam and video monitor for at home "video conferencing." The care receiver may feel much more needed and appreciated when their far flung family and friends can "look in" on them any where in the world where they can get broadband internet access and simply chat for a bit.
Why is Grandma really interested in a CareBot? She wants to stay in her home, or her family's home, as long as she possibly can. What's that worth? Priceless. Or, an average nursing home is $5,000 per month for an environment that is too often the beginning of a spiral downward in the care receiver's health. That's probably $2-3K more per month for them to be placed where they really don't want to be. Financial payback on a CareBot? Less than a year - Emotional payback for the family to have this new automatic care giver? Nearly instantaneous-
Safe Harbor:
Statements regarding financial matters in this press release other than historical facts are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The Company intends that such statements about the Company's future expectations, including future revenues and earnings, technology efficacy and all other forward-looking statements be subject to the Safe Harbors created thereby. The Company is a development stage firm that continues to be dependent upon outside capital to sustain its existence. Since these statements (future operational results and sales) involve risks and uncertainties and are subject to change at any time, the Company's actual results may differ materially from expected results.
Contact:
GeckoSystems Intl. Corp.
www.GeckoSystems.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=140182685996116&v=wall
or
Main number: 1-866-CAREBOT (227-3268)
International: +1 678-413-9236
www.marketwire.com/press-release/GeckoSystems-Expands-Transparency-for-GCKO-Stockholders-1319124.htm
CONYERS, GA--(Marketwire - September 15, 2010) - GeckoSystems Intl. Corp. (PINKSHEETS: GCKO) reported today that over 80% of their nearly 1,400 stockholders hold 500,000 shares or less representing nearly 50% of all freely traded shares. The average holding for all GCKO investors is slightly over 88,000 shares each.
GeckoSystems is a dynamic leader in the emerging mobile robotics industry revolutionizing their development and usage with "Mobile Robot Solutions for Safety, Security and Service™."
"We are very appreciative of the over 1,000 small investors that have been patient in the face of massive naked shorting of GCKO stock. Typically these predatory brokers and/or brokerages short our stock down nearly each and every time we have a press release. Certainly as we continue, as most small businesses, to recover from the Great Recession brought upon us by de facto Wall Street greed, this is nonetheless a painful artifact to endure during these times of continued economic uncertainty. What is not uncertain is GCKO management's commitment to thwart these economic predators by exposing their nefarious activities and by reassuring our stockholders that the vast majority of them are 'long,'" stated Martin Spencer, President/CEO, GeckoSystems.
Continuing, there are only 17 shareholders with 1,000,000 or more shares. They hold over 36% of all stock in the public float with over 35 million shares total with an average holding of nearly 2.1 million shares. This group is pretty well known to management and virtually all are considered "long."
The remaining grouping is those stockholders with less than 1,000,000 shares, but 500,000 or more. This group of 24 shareholders hold slightly over 16% of all stock in the public float with nearly 16 million shares total with an average holding of about 650 thousand each.
It has come to our attention -- not infrequently -- that in recent weeks and months GCKO stock has been massively shorted. However, as a company, we cannot do much directly about the naked shorting of our stock aside from reporting it to FINRA and/or the SEC. However, indirectly we would ask those stockholders that are truly 'long' to contact their broker immediately and ask that their GCKO stock be placed on their "no loan" list forthwith.
A little over a month ago, on the same date, GeckoSystems management secured lists from Broadridge and The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) that quantify how many GCKO shares are held by which brokers and/or clearing houses. Unless naked shorting is occurring, the quantities of stock held by the brokerages should be the same, or nearly so, from both Broadridge's "NOBO" list and DTCC's "SPR" list.
DTCC, through its subsidiaries, provides clearance, settlement and information services for equities. Broadridge provides mission-critical products and services for securities processing, clearing & outsourcing, and investor communication.
The eight brokerages/clearing houses holding the most GCKO shares for clients on this same date last month were:
Brown Brothers/Harriman (NOBO: 500,000; SPR: 3,744,357),
Charles Schwab (NOBO: 9,327,536; SPR: 9,979,476),
E*Trade (NOBO: 12,719,363; SPR: 12,859,605),
National Financial Services (NOBO: 11,593,340; SPR: 11,714,740),
Penson Financial (NOBO: 8,345,263; SPR: 8,497,990),
RBC Capital Markets (NOBO: 8,190,646; SPR: 6,269,446),
Scottrade (NOBO: 14,401,790; SPR: 15,018,489),
and TD Ameritrade (NOBO: 18,694,690 ; SPR: 21,738,670).
A cursory perusal reveals that five of the foregoing are "pretty good." The other three depict significant differences in their GCKO holdings to Broadridge and DTCC. Some GCKO investors may wish to notify their broker to place their GCKO stock on their "no loan" list to coerce their brokerage into not using their personally held GCKO shares for any shorting whatsoever of GCKO stock, especially if your stock is being held by any of the less rigorously compliant brokerages and/or clearing houses noted in the preceding.
"By making more company information publicly available as to stock structure, beneficial owners, etc, GeckoSystems is attempting to foster an efficient secondary trading market and provide greater understanding of our business model for investors, advisors, and regulators in the OTC market," said Martin Spencer, President/CEO, GeckoSystems. "We hope that our meeting the Current Information guidelines will allow us to better satisfy the needs of our stakeholders by providing high quality disclosure to investors via Pink Sheets."
The term "OTC securities" is a catchall phrase for any equity security that is not listed on a U.S. stock exchange. The OTCQX and Pink Sheets marketplaces constitute, by dollar volume, the third largest U.S. liquidity pool for trading public company shares, after The NASDAQ Stock Market, Inc. (NASDAQ) and The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).
Late this past August, GeckoSystems announced that its stock is now quoted in the U.S. over-the-counter (OTC) markets, on the Pink Sheets "Current Information" tier, under the ticker symbol GCKO.
In the last four years GeckoSystems secured its trading symbol, GCKO, by satisfying FINRA's 15c2-11 requirements. Subsequently GeckoSystems became DTC eligible and a DRS participant to further enhance stockholder liquidity and value. Now GeckoSystems has satisfied Pinksheets requirements to be designated: Current Information.
Due to the need for equity financing for high growth firms, GeckoSystems has worked for over ten years to become fully reporting as soon as financially viable. In fact, the Company has been successfully audited twice, for two year periods each, and found to be fully compliant under thorough outside financial audits prepared by SEC certified CPA firms with the Financial Accounting Standards Board's (FASB's) generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP).
"Due to the level of risk inherent in high tech, emerging market Development Stage firms such as ours, especially during this Great Recession, we understand clearly that only equity (not debt) instruments can provide sufficient return on investment (ROI) for investors to assume the risk of purchasing any high tech, emerging market stock such as GCKO stock. Hence our long time efforts in this regard, and determination to continue our move upward to not only a more pronounced domestic stock exchange, but also those with international reach, such as OTCQX," observed Spencer.
GeckoSystems received their Pink Sheet trading symbol, GCKO, from FINRA as a result of satisfying all their due diligence requirements from the filing of a Form 15c2-11. The Company has no unaccounted for, or otherwise missing, shares outstanding and issued. "We worked for nearly a year in preparing our initial 15c2-11 submission to, and addressing the comments of, FINRA prior to their issuance of our trading symbol, GCKO. We received our trading symbol, GCKO, from FINRA in September of 2007. In order to enable electronic trading we became DTC eligible in January of 2008. As a DRS Participant, the ability to trade GCKO stock electronically is even more streamlined, efficient, transparent, and reliable," stated Spencer.
DRS provides for the electronic direct registration of securities in an investor's name on the books of the transfer agent or issuer. It allows shares to be transferred between a transfer agent and a broker electronically through the industry's DRS Profile Systems. Historically, investors hold their shares either in "street name" with their broker, or they are "registered shareholders" and have a certificate. Consequently, the Company is in a position, as a DRS participant, to readily identify those parties engaging in "naked short selling" of GCKO stock.
"We will continue to do everything in our power to be completely, but prudently, transparent with our shareholders. We wish to assure our stockholders that this greater efficiency in the marketplace for our stock will further enhance the value and liquidity of GCKO stock and increase the ROI for them as we continue in our efforts to move upward to more pronounced domestic and international stock exchanges," reflected Spencer.
About GeckoSystems International Corporation:
Since 1997, GeckoSystems has developed a comprehensive, coherent, and sufficient suite of hardware and software inventions to enable a new type of home appliance (a personal robot) the CareBot™, to be created for the mass consumer marketplace. The suite of primary inventions includes: GeckoNav™, GeckoChat™ and GeckoTrak™.
The primary market for this product is the family for use in eldercare, care for the chronically ill, and childcare. The primary distribution channel for this new home appliance is the thousands of independent personal computer retailers in the U.S. The manufacturing infrastructure for this new product category of mobile service robots is essentially the same as the personal computer industry. Several outside contract manufacturers have been identified and qualified their ability to produce up to 1,000 CareBots per month within four to six months.
The Company is market driven. At the time of founding, over twelve years ago, the Company did extensive primary market research to determine the demographic profile of the early adopters of the then proposed product line. Subsequent to, and based on that original market research, they have assembled numerous focus groups to evaluate the fit of the CareBot personal robot into the participant's lives and their expected usage. The Company has also frequently employed the Delphi market research methodology by contacting and interviewing senior executives, practitioners, and researchers knowledgeable in the area of elder care. Using this factual basis of internally performed primary and secondary market research, and third party research is the statistical substance for the Company's sales forecasts.
Not surprisingly the scientific statistical analyses applied revealed that elderly over sixty-five living alone in metropolitan areas with broadband Internet available and sufficient household incomes to support the increased costs were identified as those most likely to adopt initially. Due to the high cost of assisted living, nursing homes, etc. the payback for a CareBot™ is expected to be only six to eight months while keeping elderly care receivers independent, in their own long time homes, and living longer due to the comfort and safety of more frequent attention from their loved ones.
"We project the available market size in dollars for cost effective, utilitarian, multitasking eldercare personal robots in 2011 to be $74.0B, in 2012 to be $77B, in 2013 to be $80B, in 2014 to be $83.3B, and in 2015 to be $86.6B. With market penetrations of 0.03% in 2011, 0.06% in 2012, 0.22% in 2013, 0.53% in 2014, and 0.81% in 2015, we will anticipate CareBot sales, from this consumer market segment, only, of $22.0M, $44.0M, $176M, $440.2M, and $704.3M, respectively. We expect these sales despite -- and perhaps because of -- the present recession due to pent up demand for significant cost reduction in eldercare expenses," opined Spencer.
The foregoing forecasts do not include sales in non-metropolitan areas; elderly couples over 65 (only elderly living alone are in these forecasts); those chronically ill -- regardless of age -- or elderly living with their adult children.
The Company's "mobile robot solutions for safety, security and service™" are appropriate not only for the consumer, but also professional healthcare, commercial security and defense markets. Professional healthcare require cost effective, timely errand running, portable telemedicine, etc. Homeland Security requires cost effective mobile robots to patrol and monitor public venues for weapons and WMD detection. Military users desire the elimination of the "man in the loop" to enable unmanned ground and air vehicles to not require constant human control and/or intervention.
The Company's business model is very much like that of an automobile manufacturer. Due to the final assembly, test, and shipping being done based on geographic and logistic realities; strategic business-to-business relationships can range from private labeling to joint manufacturing and distribution to licensing only.
Several dozen patent opportunities exist for the Company due to the many innovative and cost effective breakthroughs embodied not only in GeckoNav, GeckoChat, and GeckoTrak, but also in additional, secondary systems that include: GeckoOrient™, GeckoMotorController™, the GeckoTactileShroud™, the CompoundedSensorArray™, and the GeckoSPIO™.
The present senior management at GeckoSystems has over thirty-five years experience in consumer electronics sales and marketing and product development. Senior managers have been identified for the areas of manufacturing, marketing, sales, and finance.
While GeckoSystems has been in the Development Stage, the Company has accumulated losses to date in excess of six million dollars. In contrast, the Japanese government has spent one hundred million dollars in grants (to Sanyo, Toshiba, Hitachi, Fujitsu, NEC, etc.) over the same time period to develop personal robots for their eldercare crisis, yet no viable solutions have been developed.
GeckoSystems is the first mobile robot developer in the world to begin actual in-home eldercare evaluation trials.
What Does a CareBot Do for the Care Giver?
The short answer is that it decreases the difficulty and stress for the caregiver that needs to watch over Grandma, Mom, or other family members most, if not much, of the time day in and day out due to concerns about their well being, safety, and security.
But, first let's look at some other labor saving, automatic home appliances most of us use routinely. For example, needing to do two or more necessary chores and/or activities at the same time, like laundering clothes and preparing supper.
The automatic washing machine needs no human intervention after the dirty clothes are placed in the washer, the laundry powder poured in, and the desired wash cycle set. Then, this labor saving appliance runs automatically until the washed clothes are ready to be placed in another labor saving home appliance, the automatic clothes dryer. While the clothes are being washed and/or dried, the caregiver prepares supper using several time saving home appliances like the microwave oven, "crock" pot, blender, and conventional stove, with possible convection oven capabilities.
After supper, the dirty pots, pans, and dishes are placed in the automatic dishwasher to be washed and dried while the family retires to the den to watch TV, and/or the kids to do homework. Later, perhaps after the kids have gone to bed, the caregiver may then have the time to fold, sort, and put up the now freshly laundered clothes.
So what does a CareBot do for the caregiver? It is a new type of labor saving, time management automatic home appliance.
For example, the care giver frequently feels time stress when they need to go shopping for 2 or 3 hours, and are uncomfortable when they have to be away for more than an hour or so. Time stress is much worse for the caregiver with a frail elderly parent that must be reminded to take medications at certain times of the day. How can the caregiver be away for 3-4 hours when Grandma must take her prescribed medication every 2 or 3 hours? If the caregiver is trapped in traffic for an hour or two beyond the 2 or 3 they expected to be gone, this "time stress" can be very difficult for the caregiver to moderate.
Not infrequently, the primary caregiver has a 24 hour, 7 days a week responsibility. After weeks and weeks of this sometimes tedious, if not onerous routine, how does the caregiver get a "day off?" To bring in an outsider is expensive (easily $75-125 per day for just 8 hours) and there is the concern that medication will be missed or the care receiver have an accident requiring immediate assistance by the caregiver, or someone they must designate. And the care receiver may be very resistant to a "stranger" coming in to her home and "running things."
So what is it worth for a care receiver to have an automatic system to help take care of Grandma? Just 3 or 4 days a month "off" on a daylong shopping trip, a visit with friends, or just take in a movie would cost $225-500 per month. And that scenario assumes that Grandma is willing to be taken care of by a "stranger" during those needed and appropriate days off.
So perhaps, an automatic caregiver, a CareBot, might be pretty handy, and potentially very cost effective from the primary caregiver's perspective.
What Does a CareBot Do for the Care Receiver?
It's a new kind of companion that always stays close to them enabling family and friends to care for them from afar. It tells them jokes, retells family anecdotes, reminds them to take medication, reminds them that family is coming over soon (or not at all), recites Bible verses, plays favorite songs and/or other music. It alerts them when unexpected visitors, or intruders are present. It notifies designated caregivers when a potentially harmful event has occurred, such as a fall, fire in the home, or simply been not found by the CareBot for too long. It responds to calls for help and notifies those that the caregiver determined should be immediately notified when any predetermined adverse event occurs.
The family can customize the personality of the CareBot. The voice's cadence can be fast or slow. The intonation can be breathy, or abrupt. The voice's volume can range from very loud to very soft. The response phrases from the CareBot for recognized words and phrases can be colloquial and/or unique to the family's own heritage. The personality can range from brassy to timid depending on how the care giver, and others appropriate, chooses it to be.
Generally, the care receiver is pleased at the prospect of family being able to drop in for a "virtual visit" using the onboard webcam and video monitor for at home "video conferencing." The care receiver may feel much more needed and appreciated when their far flung family and friends can "look in" on them any where in the world where they can get broadband internet access and simply chat for a bit.
Why is Grandma really interested in a CareBot? She wants to stay in her home, or her family's home, as long as she possibly can. What's that worth? Priceless. Or, an average nursing home is $5,000 per month for an environment that is too often the beginning of a spiral downward in the care receiver's health. That's probably $2-3K more per month for them to be placed where they really don't want to be. Financial payback on a CareBot? Less than a year - Emotional payback for the family to have this new automatic care giver? Nearly instantaneous-
Safe Harbor:
Statements regarding financial matters in this press release other than historical facts are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The Company intends that such statements about the Company's future expectations, including future revenues and earnings, technology efficacy and all other forward-looking statements be subject to the Safe Harbors created thereby. The Company is a development stage firm that continues to be dependent upon outside capital to sustain its existence. Since these statements (future operational results and sales) involve risks and uncertainties and are subject to change at any time, the Company's actual results may differ materially from expected results.
Contact:
GeckoSystems Intl. Corp.
www.GeckoSystems.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=140182685996116&v=wall
or
Main number: 1-866-CAREBOT (227-3268)
International: +1 678-413-9236
www.marketwire.com/press-release/GeckoSystems-Expands-Transparency-for-GCKO-Stockholders-1319124.htm