CAM Data’s Deal Rings True With Its Shareholders

The cash register business, which has as much sex appeal as corduroy, is looking up for Fountain Valley-based CAM Data Systems Inc., which has seen its stock hit all-time highs in recent weeks.

Last week, the company inked a deal to distribute NCR Corp. point-of-sale terminals (that’s “cash registers” to you and me) to small retailers, the market on which CAM Data focuses.

And while CAM will make a decent dime on selling the well-respected NCR equipment, the machines will come with CAM’s software, which helps retailers manage inventory and analyze sales patterns.

The company already distributes its software free over the Internet to be used on a single machine in a single location.

For most small retailers, one register is enough. But for those merchants that grow, they will have to pay the $3,400 to use the software on additional machines.

“This is big for us,” said David Frosh, president of CAM Data. “With NCR behind this, it gives us a strong brand and a lot of credibility for the software.”

Their stock hasn’t been hurting either. It reached an all-time high of $24.19 earlier this month and on Friday closed at $21.25. Last January, the stock traded at $3.31 a share.

2 Companies Race to Provide Same-Day Service Via Web

Catering to the 3-year-old in all of us who wants things “Now! Now! Now!,” two Southland companies have recently launched same-day delivery services.

NowDocs.com Inc. in Aliso Viejo and Shipper.com in Industry both use the virtual world of the Internet to feed our real-world need for speed.

NowDocs.com hopes that “absolutely, positively overnight” isn’t fast enough for small businesses and corporate customers who, despite the onset of the electronic age, still need to distribute high-quality printed documents.

The company, which just came out of its beta-testing phase, will find well-established competitors on two fronts: overnight delivery folks like Federal Express Corp. and quick-service print shops like Sir Speedy Inc. in Mission Viejo and Kinko’s Inc. in Ventura.

NowDocs.com believes it has a technological advantage over Kinko’s and Sir Speedy by offering a service that accepts a document in more computer formats and that has online viewing and printing expertise that the delivery firms lack.

The company also offers overnight delivery through FedEx, with drop-off times as late as 9 p.m.

The company, which officially launches in February but is operational now, will initially serve 15 markets, including Los Angeles and Orange counties. The service will run $19.95 for 10 black-and-white pages, plus 20 cents for each additional page and 95 cents for each additional color page.

Sir Speedy and Kinko’s aren’t standing still, of course. With thousands of locations across the world, they have significant advantages in brand awareness, customer relationships and market penetration.

Last October, Sir Speedy teamed up with InstantDocuments.com in Dallas to offer a similar service, and Kinko’s Kinkonet allows a person to send a document to be printed at any Kinko’s in the world.

For those who specialize in Christmas shopping procrastination, Shipper.com last week launched its online mall that guarantees same-day delivery of items.

The Industry company doesn’t have a wide selection, mind you--you can buy any DVD player you want as long as it’s a Toshiba SD-10009--but it’s got to be better than raiding the shelves at 7-Eleven.

Anything purchased by 2 p.m. will be delivered by 8 p.m. in Los Angeles, Orange and west San Bernardino counties, the company said, even on Christmas Day. Delivery costs $4.95, but purchases of more than $50 are delivered free.

“There is a window of opportunity here over the next week to satisfy a lot of the demand that other sites won’t be able to take advantage of,” said Alex Nesbitt, chief executive of Shipper.com. “We look at this as a starting point. One of the things we’ve learned is that people want both selection and speed, and we put together this selection rather rapidly.”

The company has also been trying since September to sign up other online merchants to offer its same-day shipping service to their customers, but has yet to announce any partnerships.

Researchers Find Paper Trail in Cyberspace

As if we needed more evidence that we’re a far cry from the paperless office: A survey of car dealers that participate in online sales found that 95% of them print out their Internet communications.

The study was performed by four MBA students at UC Irvine as part of a project for their market research class taught by Professor Joel Poor.

“We were shocked that they were dedicating someone, either a sales manager or salesman, to sit there and print out e-mails,” said Susan Moe, one of the candidates for a master’s degree in business administration. “The inefficiencies were just startling.”

The marketing study was done in conjunction with VillageFax.com, a Tustin firm that delivers faxes using the Internet.

Apparently, Internet Charity Begins at Home

Remember all those Internet stores offering to give a percentage of sales to the charity of your choice? The results are in, and apparently the geeks give to . . . other geeks.

Shoppers at IGive.com have directed donations to dozens of charities, from the relatively small Educate the Children in Huntington Beach to the giant Trinity Broadcasting Network Inc. in Santa Ana. But the organization that benefited the most this year was Distributed Computing Technologies Inc. in Alabama.

Never heard of that one?

The 2-year-old nonprofit harnesses the power of more than 50,000 computers around the world to tackle large problems that require tremendous calculating strength. Their specialty, however, is testing state-of-the-art cryptography technology, which is the science of making and breaking codes.

People with computers hooked up to the Internet volunteer to help out on various code-breaking projects, several of which are sponsored by corporations that offer cash prizes.