I appreciate your desire for the last word.
I also sometimes feel like nothing more needs to be written after I've posted, but I'm not so arrogant as to make a plea to others for silence. I post to educate and stimulate discussion rather than to muzzle others. Based on the number of responses to my posts, I'd say I've been successful.
You're wrong when you assert that "one can plug anything one wants to and get the answer they desire." Numbers don't lie. If you believe you can disprove that notion, pick some carefully chosen data from the SEC documents of, say Microsoft, and Wind River and try to prove that Wind River is a better company than Microsoft. No matter how you slice it, it remains impossible to escape the bitter truth. I quoted the numbers rather than "massaging" them and I'm greatly insulted that you'd make such a silly accusation.
I have no idea how you got the idea that I recommend an investment in Apple. They've lost hundreds of millions of dollars and fared much more poorly than both Wind River and Integrated Systems for many years. Apple has been going downhill since before Integrated Systems went public in 1990. I write plenty of words and there's no reason why you cannot contest something that I wrote, rather than some figment of your imagination.
SEC documents are very useful pieces of information. I have no idea how you came to the conclusion that past numbers are my sole source of information. If you'll examine my past posts, you'll notice that there's plenty of prose. In fact, I suspect that the prose bothers you more than numbers from SEC filings, since the interpretation is more subjective. Numbers don't lie.
A lot of people on this thread have made the mistake of assuming that the spectacular rise in stock price has come about as the result of highly profitable years and extraordinary management. If you read between the lines, it's clear to see that Wind River had an operating loss a few years ago and the stock got trashed. The recovery of earnings, the general rise in small tech stocks the last 3 years, and momentum investors egged on by investment banker hype have synergistically combined to raise the stock price. It's highly unlikely that all 3 factors will continue indefinitely.
The current trend of WIND vs. INTS may or may not be temporary. The SEC requires these companies to make these filings because you can get important clues to that question, so you'd be wise to discontinue ignoring them. Clearly, Wind River sacrificed operating profits for 3 years in a successful effort to build a competitive OS. The filings also clearly show that both companies have tons of cash, which would make it very easy for them to engage themselves in a price war similar to the airline industry a few years ago or the x86 processor vendors in the near future. Or, Integrated Systems could increase R&D spending and create a more compelling product. If you look back to the PC industry, you might recall that Ashton-Tate formerly charged royalties for DBase run-time licenses, but competition forced them to charge a flat rate of about $600. Microsoft undercut that price to $99 with the release of Access 1.0 about 5 years ago and the price has remained there ever since. Microsoft is making money on Access only because they have a monopoly and they've converted a product that was once in a low volume specialized category into a mainstream application shipped with nearly every PC. There are already smaller companies that make RTOSes without royalties and run-time licenses could be given away in the future by larger vendors as development systems volumes increase and competition intensifies. |
