Stu, I posted this back on 17 Jun to Peter but no one responded. What do you think of Wind having only 1 registered U.S. patent. Also, I wonder if anyone knows how much is "significant" which is how the last 10Q describes the portion of revenue coming from VME or basically one off government/defense and academic projects. Here are relavent sections of the last 10Q. Rich
DEPENDENCE ON VME MARKET
A significant amount of Wind River's revenues historically has been derived
from sales of systems built to the VME (versabus module eurocard) standard.
These systems typically are used in high cost, low volume applications,
including military, telecommunications, space and research applications.
Although Wind River believes that revenues from sales of products designed
for embedded systems applications will account for an increasing percentage
of Wind River's revenues in the future, Wind River expects revenues from the
VME market to continue to be significant for the foreseeable future. Academic
institutions and defense industry participants, which generate a significant
portion of Wind River's VME revenues, are dependent on government funding,
the continued availability of which is uncertain. Typically, Wind River's VME
customers have received government funding prior to placing its product
orders with Wind River. Any unanticipated future termination of government
funding of VME customers could have a material adverse effect on Wind River's
business, financial condition and results of operations.
LIMITED PROTECTION OF PROPRIETARY TECHNOLOGY; RISKS OF INFRINGEMENT
Wind River's success is heavily dependent upon its proprietary technology. To
protect its proprietary rights, Wind River relies on a combination of
copyright, trade secret, patent and trademark laws, nondisclosure and other
contractual restrictions on copying, distribution and technical measures.
Wind River seeks to protect its software, documentation and other written
materials through trade secret and copyright laws, which provide only limited
protection. In addition, Wind River has one registered U.S. patent. There can
be no assurance that the claims allowed will be of sufficient scope or
strength (or be issued in all countries where Wind River's products can be
sold) to provide meaningful protection or any commercial advantage to Wind
River. As a part of its confidentiality procedures, Wind River generally
enters into nondisclosure agreements with its employees, consultants,
distributors and corporate partners and limits access to and distribution of
its software, documentation and other proprietary information. End user
licenses of Wind River's software are frequently in the form of shrink wrap
license agreements, which are not signed by licensees, and therefore may be
unenforceable under the laws of many jurisdictions. Despite Wind River's
efforts to protect its proprietary rights, it may be possible for
unauthorized third parties to copy Wind River's products or to reverse
engineer or obtain and use information that Wind River regards as
proprietary. There can be no assurance that Wind River's competitors will not
independently develop technologies that are substantially equivalent or
superior to Wind River's technologies. Policing unauthorized use of
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