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We may be witnessing the beginnings of a shakeout in the market for orebody-modelling software.
Having grown in revenues and profits by about 25% each year for the past five years, Gemcom Software International of Vancouver is going public.
To take market share from weaker competitors, the company plans to spend about $2 million on product development in 1997 and to acquire, outright, competitive companies. The cash raised in the public offering would help it accomplish this.
The company hoped to raise $2.5 million in its intial public offering, which was set to close July 29, 1997.
"We see mining as part of a larger GIS market, which includes environmental, geological and mine modelling applications," according to Dr. Tony Diering, vice-president of technology development for Gemcom. Speaking at the Annual General Meeting of the Canadian Institute of Mining Metallurgy & Petroleum, held in Vancouver, B.C., in May, Diering declared: "We expect to grow by 18% to 33% per year. The market is now full, so we see an opportunity for rationalization along the lines of the Microsoft example."
In terms of what the company offers clients, Diering says, "We want to get to the point where there is 100% database and software compatibility -- not just in drillhole databases, but in block modeling and production scheduling as well." The company plans to have all of its systems available on the Windows platform by the end of 1997.
One of the weaknesses Diering percieves in the mining...