Inside Asian Gaming

August 2009 | INSIDE ASIAN GAMING 21 Transact their staff like the 950 because it’s easy to use. One other thing the operators say they like about the 950 is that in terms of the paper stock, the 950 will notify when the printer is down to just one or two tickets left, and the operators like that ability to notify when it’s down so close to being out, because that way they don’t get so much paper left in the tray when they put in a new ticket stack, and so they’re not wasting. Other printers notify when there are 30 or 40 tickets left in the stack. Competing products can have a lot of paper left in the printer when they notify‘ticket low’. With the 950 you can specify down to very low, down to one or two tickets. That is a real advantage; it’s less paper wastage, it’s more green, and everyone’s looking to be a little more environmentally friendly, as well as saving money. Each product works differently, and the older products in particular that might have been out there for longer don’t have the ability to go down to such a low trigger. Your latest product launch was ServerPort™. How has that been doing? We’ve been working with all the major OEMs to make sure that the ServerPort™ is integrated into their system, and what it does is provide the ability not only to download firmware remotely to the printer and to monitor the printer status through applications like Bally’s display manager and DCM, for example, but also it provides access to the dualport of the printer that will allow you to print coupons and vouchers separate from the gaming ticket. So that dualport capability is really important and ServerPort™ is the access to that dualport. Right now we’re at the stage of working with the OEMs and educating our casino customers about what ServerPort™ can offer them, and we’re excited about that potential. I think what you’ll see is that as this region grows in the number of properties and the properties become more competitive with each other, they’re going to be looking for ways to differentiate themselves and reward their players. We think ServerPort™ will be a key part of that strategy. ServerPort™ will offer those really forward thinking properties with great marketing departments access to another tool they can use to differentiate their property. For example, coupon printing might be a key one for several major properties in the Asian region, where they can incentivize their customers, cross market to outlets within their properties, as well as reward their players who have been loyal and played a lot with them, by offering them some comps. Despite the economic crisis and the waning fortunes of the gaming industry worldwide, TransAct’s business is actually growing... TransAct has been particularly fortunate to have a very diverse business. We’re not only in the gaming business, but also in banking teller printers, point of sale and lottery. Fortunately for TransAct, we had a record year in 2008—across the board, but particularly in gaming. The First half of 2009 is going quite well, and we announced our first quarter and we were profitable. We’ve not yet announced second quarter results, but we’ll keep you posted on how we’re going. What do you attribute your positive results to? It reallygets down tohaving innovativeproducts, great customers relationships and superior service in our regions. If you look at what we’ve done here in Asia, for example, by locating sales and support in the region, our customers believe they can count on TransAct, they know how to reach us easily, the communications flow easily with local sales and support, and I think it’s critical to the whole equation. It’s product, and place, and price and the entire offering. We really wrap that up in a package for the customer that I believe is superior to anything out there. The City of Dreamswinwas a big one for you, but with the go-slow on development of further new casino properties, are you concerned about TransAct’s prospects over the next couple of quarters? Obviously, we’re very interested in the health of the overall gaming industry and want to see the gaming industry come back. We’re all very dependent on that. However, we’re also very aggressive about going out there and winning the business that’s available to be won. We are offering more value and performance in every proposal with a commitment to personal customer service. And to that end, we’re also making investments in our business. For example, we’re in process to add incremental sales and technical sales positions to take advantage of opportunities in existing and also developing markets. So are you in the unusual situation of increasing your headcount, while other gaming suppliers are laying off staff? Yes, we are growing staff. We’ve just added a number of people to our staff in inside sales and marketing, so TransAct is actually growing. And we expect that you’ll see further growth fromus here in Asia in the short term. We anticipate that we’ll be adding even more local technical support to work alongside Andrew as well. Macau’s City of Dreams specified TransAct’s Epic 950 as the printer of choice on all its slot machines ServerPort 950 Epic 880