Kiosk vendor on verge of breaking out

EAST GREENWICH, R.I. - Keep your eyes on kiosk provider Carten Technologies Corp. The vendor, in research-and-development mode for two years, has several international projects on paper, two notable partnerships forming and cautious support from well-known industry players.

Brian Sikorski, sales and marketing manager at printer manufacturer Practical Automation, is watching Carten evolve. Sikorski said Practical has only provided two or three printers to Carten so far, yet he sees it as a "million-dollar business opportunity over the next two years." Practical, he said, may invest engineering support in Carten because the company is providing Practical with good feedback on its printers. There is no equity relationship.

"We are curious about where these guys are headed," said Sikorski. "They've asked some good questions, which has piqued our interest. They have put the functionality and reliability of printers and peripherals as a forethought, unlike many companies."

Carten Technologies is 60-percent funded by New York-based investment firm, Urquhart Inc., which does not have a Web site. Director Mark Carten owns 30 percent, and Global Trade Group owns the remaining 10 percent, according to Carten, a former self-employed R&D engineer. The company employs five.

Where the deals are

Carten's largest deal to date, which it expects to seal by April 30, involves a company that owns 3,000 pubs in Britain, said Mark Carten, director of Carten Technologies. He said the customer has put up $10 million to start the project, which involves wall-mounted and bar-top kiosks featuring email browsers, online gambling and perhaps even interactive dating. Some of the off-the-shelf kiosks will have telephones.

"Pubs are the center of the universe in England, so this is a big deal," said Carten. He expects to deploy the kiosks in June. The customer was not available for comment.

Another project for Carten Technologies is an order from AT&T to deploy kiosks in four military bases in Europe, starting with Ramstein airbase in Germany, which received publicity lately as the base to which soldiers injured in Operation Iraqi Freedom were airlifted, and Mildenhall airbase in the United Kingdom, Carten said. The trial project, expected to begin in mid-May, will allow service personnel to contact families and friends in the states from a relaxed, private setting.

"Carten is supplying public Internet access terminals in common areas of the bases. The kiosks will permit users to access the Internet, and send or receive e-mail at a pay-per-use rate of 20 cents per minute," said Jim Agliata, director business development for AT&T public markets. "We already have cyber cafes in other areas of the bases, but there is a need for a self-contained kiosk in the food courts and other common areas."

Agliata would not disclose terms of the deal. Carten said he is optimistic that the agreement  could eventually lead to providing 200 machines over the next 13 months to bases all over the world. He declined to put a figure on the project. "The trial will be for about two to three months to see how well we can work together," he said.

And that's not all for overseas trials at Carten. The company has an order with the British government through an agency called One Northeast to deploy kiosks in remote villages in the United Kingdom.

"The purpose is connecting people to the Internet who would otherwise not have such capabilities. These kiosks will offer voice-over-IP telephony, Internet browsing, text emailing, video emailing, faxing, scanning, copying, printing, laptop re-charging and WiFi," said Carten. He said users can pay for the services with cash or credit cards accepted by the units. The Internet connection to each kiosk will be provided by dishes from Hughes satellite systems.

The deal calls for four kiosks initially, at $12,000 per kiosk, Carten said. "Thank goodness the government is purchasing them outright through a grant, because who knows what kind of return we'd get on these," said Carten.

Carten, who is taking a May trip to Manila, Phillippines, to discuss business with companies in six separate Asian countries, said he believes opportunities overseas outnumber those in the United States. "Americans are taking too long to adopt this technology," he said. 

Partner Play

One key to Carten Technologies' success, Carten said, is forming strategic partnerships. One in the works involves MontegoNet, a full-service kiosk provider in Portsmouth, R.I.

Thomas Smith, CEO and founder of MontegoNet, said there are strict non-disclosures surrounding his work with Carten. He would not comment on Carten's assertion that the companies could merge, "possibly in the next six months."

Smith said, "We are two kiosk companies based in Rhode Island, about 20 minutes away, that complement each other very well in our abilities. Carten Technologies has some well-developed software and integration products that serve the transactional, pay-per-service Internet kiosk model very well."

He said MontegoNet has a full manufacturing facility, application developers, graphic designers, modelers, and a complete service staff available to assist in all aspects of the kiosk deployment process.