Investors: 2008 Year End Report to Stockholders
January 21, 2009
Greetings!
Like most of us living and working in the U.S., we have all been impacted by the severity of the worst economic downturn since the 1930's. As we all know, while simple personal and business survival is congratulatory, demonstrable progress is extraordinary.
And we have progressed! We have progressed not only in our mobile robot solutions for safety, security, and service™, but also in the various marketplaces appropriate for our mobile service robot solutions.
In 2008 we advanced the state of development for our: GeckoSPIO™, GeckoOrient™, GeckoOrient™, Gecko-Nav™, GeckoChat™, GeckoTrak™, and GeckoZap™ technologies. (You may find the 2008 press releases on these technologies on our website, www.GeckoSystems.com.)
Using all for foregoing proprietary technologies, and more, we announced the completion of our most advanced suite of mobile robot solutions in the world, embodied in our multitasking personal robot, the CareBot™ 3.82 MSR.
And during the last year, we initiated and/or expanded our relationships with firms such as Omron, POSDATA, Motorola, Sparton Medical, Chubb Insurance, Honeywell, Symphony, SIASUN, Computer Science Corp., etc. We presently have a representative in main land China investigating not only supplier relationships, but also distribution and funding through out the Pacific Rim.
Early in 2008 we became electronically traded on Pinksheets.com with our trading symbol, GCKO. We identified and initiated relationships with three investor relations firms.
We converted a significant portion of our outstanding debt to equity. This difficult decision has been the leading cause of our increasing our shares authorized to 250,000,000 and our present 212,439,925 shares now issued and outstanding. I say difficult because of the implicit dilution of our long time shareholders. Not to trivialize, but I suspect the shareholders of many major banks have been diluted more than our shareholders due to their unfortunate predilection to utilize now illegal off balance sheet financing.
Since we began as the classic "kitchen table, garage based" startup, we understand "pounding pennies into battleships." While we have had to downsize, right size, refinance, restructure, and rethink; we are very much "in the game."
During the last significant recession in 1980-1982, the downturn of the economy dramatically accelerated the adoption of a significant and very important new appliance, the Personal Computer. The immediate impact of the cost savings drove the PC into markets faster than the adoption in good economic times. Due to the less than one-year payback for many, if not most, of our mobile service robot solutions, we expect our growth to be driven not only by the economic downturn, but also pent up demand.
So, I am hopeful that those reading this letter, now agree that we have made, and continue to make, substantive progress in these trying times. Thank you very much for your past, present, and continued support.
"Let us continue to march!"
Cordially,
R. Martin Spencer
Founder