Dale -
Let me try and explain why I am long ACLY - and it is not, by any means, only related to Y2K. I am an IBM mainframe COBOL programmer with over 25 years experience in banking and telecommunications. Fifteen years ago my skills were in very high demand and I could have gotten a job anywhere. Five years ago I was a dinasour struggling to find contracts. Today, of course, I am back in demand because of Y2K - but that won't last forever. My point is that EDP is shifting focus from mainframes to client server and from procedural languages (COBOL) to object oriented languages - C++ and Java, etc.
The desktop OS's that will own the entry point (user interface) into these new paradigms are UNIX and NT. Every study I have read, and from what I have seen where I work. is that this is the future of data processing. For example, where I work, we have a billing application that 3 years ago all ran on IBM dumb terminals. Now, we have a client server front end running on NT systems that directly access the data stored on the IBM mainframe. I maintain the data but no longer have the user interface.
NT & UNIX. What Accelr8 does for the DEC world is allow users to run under UNIX, and soon NT, and still access all the data, using all the old programs, operating systems and hardware. This allows a shop to maintain their investment in hardware and software without being forced to migrate - immediately. What Accelr8 provides are emulators that allow the user interface to be NT and then, behind the scenes, trick the DEC machine into thinking it is still talking to/working with VMS.
I don't believe there is any other comany that has these emulators - please correct me if I am wrong. IMHO, this is a wonderful niche and they have it to themselves. Unfortunately, Y2K came along and T. Geimer rightly calculated that he has to be a player in this market to maintain the company' exposure and credibility. But read the last press release. It clearly states that Y2K is hopefully only the beginning of the relationship between ACLY and the client. What Tom wants is the add on migration business.
So here are the positives as I see it - wonderful niche market, IMHO good management (I have spoken to TG many times and an impressed), good cost control, great exiting products - the UNIX conversion stuff exists and has been operational for many years - and I like the Y2K approach also, a dynamite pipeline with the NT migration tools in development and scheduled for release this year. Tom has a game plan and he is sticking to it which I respect. The finances are good and the company has the cash flow to finance its own development. I guess I could throw in buy-out candidate also but this is pure speculation - wishful thinking.
The negatives are that it is a very small company with 25 or so employees and just does not have name recognition. It was a story stock in Dec 96 and as we know once the story is told it is hard to regenerate the enthusiam. It is a high PE company and there are those warrants that Calculated menitioned above. The momentum is definitely gone. In the short run I just don't know what will happen - but I am a long run investor.
Hope this helps.
Marshall |
