Re: Good Post from yahoo
Bradley,
I know you didn't write the post from yahoo but here is my response.
I think Dale Fuller became interim CEO to turn Inprise around and sell it.
That is consistent with speculation on this board.
The longer he stayed, the more he liked what he saw. He said himself he 'fell in love' with what he was doing and the future of Linux.
He fell in love with himself and the future of Linux? I bet that's not what the author meant to say.
Instead of selling Inprise for a premium and riding off in the sunset, he saw a great opportunity in the future of Linux.
In fairness to Dale the stock has appreciated during his tenure. By selling at the price when the "merger" was announced maybe he felt that Inprise was overvalued and the premium was already built into the price. After all, revenue was declining year over year. How much revenue will be recognized from Kylix (sp.?) this year? Assume it's not late.
For Inprise to fully captialize on Linux it needed to be a complete Linux company. INPR+CORL= complete Linux company.
This is what I don't see. If Inprise needed Corel then it tells me that Inprise was not likely to be profitable on its own any time in the near future. In order to go forward they needed a revenue source and the prospect of frittering away the 200M in cash on operations didn't sit right with Dale. I guess they (Inprise) are counting on Corel's applications to be the revenue driver while the tools lose money. The merger leads me to believe that the "Switzerland" of tools model wasn't going to hack it so they went for the Swiss Army Knife of Linux approach.
On paper Corel bought Inprise, but actually Inprise took over Corel. How else could Dale become COB.
Anyone really buy this? If this were not a buyout but a merger of equals then Inprise would have proportional representation on Corel's BOD. Does Dale and one other board member represent 45% of Corland's BOD? The COB position is often just a ceremonial position especially if the allegiance of the majority of board members is to the CEO who appointed them to the board in the first place.
IF Inprise shareholders received a big premium, it would set Corel back.
Boo hoo hoo, let me wipe the tears from my eyes, I'm touched that we Inprise shareholders are such a generous lot. Sniff..sniff.
Dale figured Inprise shareholders would fare better being part of Corel with him at the helm.
He's not going to be running the show from the COB position.
INPR could go up alone and go up better with CORL.
Hopefully true.
He thought the merger would be welcomed by INPR shareholders.
I guess he was wrong. More important than the shareholders is how the customers are taking this. Borland was a tough sell before; has it gotten easier or harder to commit your business to Borland tools? Opps, I mean Corel's tools.
He even said in the webcast 'a little news later'. I think that's what he was refering to. He wouldn't have said that if he didn't think we would like it. He saw something in the future of Linux to make him stay around and be a part of it. He has confidence in himself, Corel and the future. The street doesn't see it that way with two companys with virtually no earnings and stagnant growth and going to compete with MSFT in OSs. It's going to take time for the growth in this industry to accelerate.
Virtually no earnings, stagnant growth, competing with MSFT, you left out "the street's" opinion of Corel's management.
I have confidence in Dale Fuller and I don't think he will let us down, eventually.
Does the author really mean this as written?
Tom |
