GIS Becomes Brodart Reseller
DartClix and DartClix 4 Kids marketed to Polaris customers
Brodart Co. and GIS Information Services have signed a deal under which GIS is now a reseller of Brodart's DartClix and DartClix 4 Kids web tools, which GIS will market to its Polaris customers. DartClix and DartClix 4 Kids are subscription services providing professionally selected and cataloged web sites in MARC format that can be viewed directly in a library's public access catalog (PAC).
The DartClix package comes with an initial file of over 17,000 web sites, with hundreds of new sites added every month. DartClix 4 Kids sports over 2900 web site records and is expanded monthly. Anita Wagner, GIS chief operating officer, said that the "latest release of Polaris, version 3.1, includes a development project to support the maintenance aspects of DartClix through the cataloging import process. This capability makes it even easier for Polaris libraries to enhance their PACs with DartClix." [ read full article ]
Google resellers look for boost from IPO
Cleveland businessman David Goebel, who resells Google's search technology, thinks the initial public stock offering of the popular Internet search engine will give his company a big boost.
Tim Needles, founder and CEO of Onix Networking Group of Westlake, which also resells the Google technology, is more cautious, saying it's too early to tell what the effect will be.
Goebel Group Inc. of Cleveland and Onix Networking are among the companies authorized to sell leases of the Google Search Appliance. Customers lease the appliance, a Linux computer loaded with Google software, to make it easy for their employees to find documents on internal computer networks such as intranets.
Google filed plans on April 29 for an IPO that the company hopes will raise $2.7 billion. Mr. Goebel, who founded the three-employee Goebel Group in spring 2002, said he expects Google to use some of the IPO cash to invest more money in its reseller channel. Google receives 95% of its revenues from advertising, so it's logical for Google to seek to expand revenues with bigger sales of its Google Search Appliance, he said.
Goebel charges $32,000 to $350,000 for a two-year lease of the search appliance; the price varies depending upon how many computers and documents are accessed. [ read full article ]
Resellers rile phone companies - Dealers say it's legal to profit from prepaid cells; others call it fraud
Along Harry Hines Boulevard, three men arrested in Michigan last week weren't known as potential terrorists. To shop owners there, they were seen as ambitious young businessmen.
"They seemed like good guys, young, hard-working," said Jalal Charanya, owner of Wireless Way, which sells prepaid cellphones. "There are many guys selling these kinds of phones ... but they were probably my biggest supplier."
Louai Othman, Adham Othman and Maruan Muhareb have been cleared of terrorism allegations. However, they were charged Wednesday with fraud and money laundering in connection with their mass purchases and sales of cellphones.
They were known to sell as many as 200 cellphones at a time to Dallas businesses. Such commerce was not unusual for businessmen such as Mr. Charanya who are looking to buy cellphones for resale.
The trio is among a group of entrepreneurs who buy prepaid phones in stores and then resell them -- some for use in the United States, others to be exported, stripped down, repackaged and resold for profit in places such as Hong Kong and other foreign markets.
But it's a major irritation to the U.S. wireless phone companies that sell the phones at a discount so that they can make money selling telephone connections by the minute. [ read full article ]