for me, I am waiting for $14 handle to do some work....we have been through this territory before...everyone has a different opinion, but was the news about mkt share a surprise...RAPT was the first to strongly support NT and first to introduce low end version...the trouble again is if you look at the pipeline of what others are doing, can anyone really say that RAPT's strategy, product offerings and channel relationships can fend off the industry forces of ease of entry, numerous competitors, etc....if you can, pls tell me...
i would be up on RAPT...if they had a better strategy then to develop product and sell the product (same story)...how about if they see that firewall is becoming a commodity and they price even more aggressively to get an install base---their window of opportunity is diminishing...aquire other higher margin security services (e.g., security mgmt, authentication, internet commerce, etc)--add value to establish relationships-- and drive profitability thru these business while shutting out other firewallers....this is a fast growing mkt and mkt share is important...but more important is what you do with it...even with mkt share, RAPT is not following what i think they should be doing...its the same old story about not having a big picture/top level view of the market place...RAPT (co. and its products) can and will be marginalized in the future
besides MSFT (which everyone in the investment community is waiting to see the product features), almost every major firewallers are planning or have introduced low end NT firewall products...that is a concern...for me, i wont consider being long until i see what the product ratings are for MSFT and more importantly, how they are distributing the products and pricing offerings
while mgmt owns alot of co., it befuddles me to think that all the insider sellings are due to personal circumstances...other firewall cos. have also experienced insider selling
well, its nice to have dissenting view |
