Allen,
As always, thanks for your enlightening thoughts.
Oversimplifying, it seems to me that if you collapse even the major four lily ponds into one giant, giant pond -- call it, say, "connectedness" -- you might judge where in the summer this universal pond is by assessing the ratio between how many visible lilies were present when a "normal" person could foresee this massively connected view of the world, and when Jerry Fiddler saw it. This suggests we're pretty far along. It also jives with some of your tantalizing phrases:
... WIND’s lily pond royalties go parabolic.
...royalties should escalate to sustainable triple-digit growth rates in a couple years ...
Using gross assumptions, I've calculated that the royalty payments for DSL alone could total $75 million dollars three or four years from now. Tweak a few variables, and the number could be $25 million, or lower in 5 years or 10 years. On one hand this variability is frustrating. But I am sure that I don't have nearly as much information as is available to refine this uncertainty. Also, I am comfortable with such a range if DSL is one of a hundred ponds, each with a similar magnitude of range. I'm not sure that there are one hundred ponds with legitimate, verifiable, or even projectable WIND penetration, but I'd love to get an idea. Presumably, some ponds will pay out very low, some very high with respect to forecasts. Also presumably, there exist mathematical models to assign probabilities to the sum total of pay outs, each of which has a wide range of possible outcomes. (though I don't know those formulas).
On the Gorilla and King thread where John Huber and Don Mosher have posted excellent Project Hunt summaries of WIND's worthiness as a gorilla candidate, the posters do something I find admirable, and very much in keeping with the best these boards can do: they help each other.
I would like to propose that we do a similar thing: construct a model of agreed lily ponds and of agreed royalty determinants to project royalties over time. This may provide a framework for news announcements, and provide assumptions to be amended by company financial reporting or guidance, or Gartner market forecasts, or new information on unit royalties, or market share, etc. It may also form a backdrop for valuation that can be tracked over time. I envision different folks opting in for primary responsibility for a lily pond or other aspect.
Of course, we'd surely need an endorsement, and appreciate guidance from our thread leader.
-Peter |
