2.1 Overview The following sections outline MultiLink Solutions' five-year objectives on a monthly (year one), quarterly (years two and three) and annual (years four and five) basis. These objectives progress from company inception to an eventual acceptance of the Remote MultiLink Protocol (RMP) as a de facto industry standard for network-based group communication. 2.2 Year One Monthly Objectives Preliminary Objectives (Prior to July 1995) *Obtain initial capitalization of $850,000 provided in 3 installments as detailed in this business plan's financial section. *Incorporate MLS as a Limited Liability Partnership. *Finish development of RMP beta version for the UNIX operating system. *Prepare documents detailing RMP as a proposed standard. *Prepare programmer's manual for RMP *Prepare and publish documents describing RMP algorithms to the academic community. *Release beta test version and documents to the Internet user community. *Start the Internet standardization process through the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). *Develop a set of graphical demonstrations of RMP's advantages. *Provide RMP to 6 alpha testers for six months and 20 Internet beta testers for 3 months. *Build a beta test version of the Messaging and Replicated Object layers [will include reference to appendix at a later update]. *Hire the Chief Executive Officer, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Software Engineer. *Identify 6 independent software vendors for possible partnership. *Identify 12 potential corporate customers to beta test RMP. Year One, Month One (July 1995) *Rent office space and establish an Internet connection suitable for testing RMP. *Purchase 6 computers and an Ethernet LAN. *Develop product literature to use in marketing RMP. *Interview and hire a full-time software testing engineer, a full-time engineer to document and support the product, a half-time development engineer and a half-time administrative assistant. Year One, Month Two (August 1995) *Prepare RMP Beta Kit 1, which will include the programmer's manual, system overview, the software and forms for reporting bugs. *Send Beta Kit to interested corporate beta testers. Year One, Month Three (September 1995) *Contact the six targeted independent software vendors and commence alliance discussions. *Incorporate first round of beta testing feedback (i.e., fix bugs, update documentation, etc.). Year One, Month Four (October 1995) *Purchase booth space at a major software development conference. *Provide demo package through ftp sites [see appendix] around the country. Year One, Month Five (November 1995) *Receive second round of capitalization of $300,000 to cover operating expenses for the third, fourth and fifth quarters. *Begin Preparation of a technical white paper for submission to the journal Communications of the ACM or other trade journal. *Write a less technical article for submission to BYTE magazine or other similar magazines. Year One, Month Six (December 1995) *Submit white paper and magazine article to various industry publications. *Finish porting of RMP to the Microsoft Windows operating system. *Advance the status of the RMP Request for Comment [see appendix] to the first of three standardization levels by working with the Internet Engineering Task Force. *Establish reliable distribution channels for selling RMP. Year One, Month Seven (January 1996) *Finalize RMP version 1.1 (this includes software and documentation). *Release RMP 1.1 to manufacturing. *Prepare for upcoming software development conference: develop literature that incorporates positive beta feedback comments, create large "MultiLink Solutions" banner, etc.). *Contact software catalog vendors for inclusion of RMP. *Establish a technical support forum on CompuServe or other online service. Customers will be able to submit questions to this forum that can be answered by anyone with RMP programming experience, not just MLS. *Send Demo Packages and product literature highlight corporate advantages to 100 potential corporate customers. Year One, Month Eight (February 1996) *Attend software development conference and announce RMP version 1.1 *Announce RMP version 1.1 on CompuServe and various internet sites. Year One, Month Nine (March 1996) *Increase advertising efforts and publicize technical support forums. *Provide a limited version of the RMP development tools on the internet. Year One, Month Ten (April 1996) *Activate distribution channels to provide RMP 1.1 to software vendors. *Activate technical support forums and possible phone support. Year One, Month Eleven (May 1996) *Begin development of RMP 1.2 that incorporates bugs unfixed before 1.1 released and discovered after. *Finalize RMP 1.1 for Windows 95. Year One, Month Twelve (June 1996) *Continue RMP 1.2 development. *Advance the status of the RMP RFC [see appendix] to the second of three standardization levels. 2.3Year Two Quarterly Objectives Year Two, Quarter One (July - September, 1996) *Acquired the third round of capitalization of $200,000 to cover the costs of expanding into the mass marketing phase in the sixth, seventh and eighth quarters. *Provide extensive support to corporate customers developing with RMP. *Develop small sample applications that use RMP. *Port RMP to the Macintosh Operating System. *Work with an independent software vendor to begin development of MLS application, code named "Phoenix," that uses RMP (possibly a distributed database package or even a network game). Year Two, Quarter Two (October - December, 1996) *Focus marketing efforts on independent software vendors. *Plan for another developer's conference to be held in year two. Year Two, Quarter Three (January - March, 1997) *Release RMP 1.2 for UNIX, Windows 95 and MacOS. This version will include updated RMP tools and sample applications that customers can use as guides to developing their own applications. Year Two, Quarter Four (April - June, 1997) *Advance the status of the RMP RFC to the third of three standardization levels through the Internet Engineering Task Force. 2.4Year Three Quarterly Objectives Year Three, Quarter One (July - September, 1997) *Begin development of RMP 2.0. *Continue development of MLS Phoenix. Year Three, Quarter Two (October - December, 1997) *Establish a partnership with one major network operating system (NOS) companysuch as Novell or Microsoft that will include RMP support in the next major version of their NOS. Year Three, Quarter Three (January - March, 1998) *Finalize Phoenix. *Work closely with network operating system company to incorporate RMP in their NOS. Year Three, Quarter Four (April - June, 1998) *Release Phoenix. 2.5Year Four Annual Objectives (July, 1998 - June, 1999) *Release RMP 2.0. *Focus marketing efforts on independent software vendors and academic institutions. *Develop an additional network application based on RMP. 2.6Year Five Annual Objectives (July, 1999 - June, 2000) *Release second network application. *Establish RMP as the de facto network protocol standard for group communications.