Ed,
Et tu, Ed? <g>
I'm going to take one final shot at this, and then I'll leave it be. I will try to address everything I can think of in this one message. Flame me if you want, but this is my opinion. (I think I'm still entitled to that.)
1. I can explain what happened to me in one word. Burnout. Plain and simple. After years of fighting the battle with almost everyone over whether Fibre Channel (and Ancor) would succeed, I simply got burned out. There was a guy on Yahoo named Westwoodguy that described me perfectly. I'm paraphrasing, but he said that after someone has been in a beaten down stock for so long, they can't see the true value of the company. That causes them to sell way too soon, because they are so relieved to be out from under the burden that having the stock get beaten down has caused. (Given that I lived through Sequent, the first Sun fiasco, and the floorless convertible, it should not come as any real surprise that I might have some of those tendencies.) I will even grant that my experience has probably lowered my expectations for the entire sector. (To date, those lowered expectations have been without merit.)
2. I may have been the (or a) Fibre Channel teacher, but I don't believe I have ever claimed to be an investing teacher. (At least not a good one. <g>)
3. Evidently, I am the only one in the universe that doesn't like the Sun warrant deal. So be it. In my mind, it doesn't negatively impact the company, but it MAY impact the investing public's PERCEPTION of the company.
4. I do NOT believe that Brocade passed on the Intel Infiniband deal, and I DO think it is a plus for Ancor long-term.
5. I still believe that partly due to the increase in the price of ANCR, this thread has gotten complacent in some of its research. (The "millionaires don't have to work" theory.) However, since I am not one of those millionaires, I still have to justify a potential investment in ANCR, or any other company. And further, I have to do it without the benefit of any inside knowledge that appears to exist on Yahoo. (Signed deals with EMC, and 2-4 other OEMs, etc.) Information posted here about HP dual-sourcing, based on a call to the company is fine, by the way. Not only that, but I (and a lot of other investors) have to justify an investment AT THE CURRENT PRICE. Before I am willing to do that, I need to have my questions answered to my satisfaction. Branding me as a sour-grapes poster, a short, or a multitude of other negative things doesn't get that done. (Other potential ANCR investors may feel the same way.)
6. I have given the example of my decision to invest in a company other than ANCR late last year, when ANCR was between $70 and $80. That decision wasn't easy, and I battled with it for quite a while. Hindsight being 20-20, my decision was correct, since ANCR's price has dropped a lot since then. However, a little over a week ago, I was faced with another choice. ANCR was now at a little under 44. I made the same decision as before, but this time the choice was MUCH harder. Visualizing ANCR going to 100 or 200 didn't seem out of reach, but I went with the company that I thought could achieve greater percentage returns. Only time will tell if I made the right choice again, or if I would have been better off putting my money into ANCR. I now have a spreadsheet that tracks these investments daily, so I can see if my decisions were good ones or bad ones. (Yes Steve, I probably am over-analyzing again. <g>) Again, this does not mean that Ancor won't succeed, it just means that for ME, the choice was to go with the company that HADN'T had a tremendous run. If Ancor really lights the afterburners in 2000 with a huge ramp to Sun, Hitachi, MTIC, and the other unnamed OEMs, I will certainly look back on this as a missed opportunity. (Again.)
7. What I perceive as a lack of diligence here and on Yahoo is why I posted the Sancastle links. Frankly, I have been surprised that there hasn't really been any research into Sancastle, or any other potential competitors, until now.
8. I have been chided, corrected, and chastised for my stance on the KeyLabs tests, all without concrete evidence to refute my views, and with virtually no real research into the issues. Once again, I will offer a link, but I will leave the research and conclusions to you.
ancor.com
And now, I will go back into lurker mode. I'm trying to wean myself off of SI entirely. Besides, my two-tone VW needs a tune-up. <g>
Craig |
