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Technology Stocks : Wind River going up, up, up!
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To: Joan Osland Graffius who wrote (1850)8/28/1997 10:05:00 AM
From: Mark Brophy   of 10309
 
You have several alternatives.

Integrated Systems (INTS) is the biggest RTOS vendor, but they can't fund their expansion out of earnings, either. They had a secondary offering last year several months before Wind River. They're losing non-Intel market share to Wind River and can't get their expenses under control. I don't consider them a good deal, but they're a lot cheaper than Wind River and could make a comeback with the new release of their RTOS.

Microtec is an old RTOS vendor, but they were acquired by Mentor Graphics and aren't a pure play. The leading x86 RTOS is QNX, but they're a private Canadian company.

The best pure RTOS deal is one of the oldest companies in the microcomputer software business, Microware (MWAR). Their age allowed them to choose a good name, but "Microsoft" was already taken. They went public recently and also raised cash. They're losing money and the stock is depressed, so there's little downside risk. Motorola owns 11% of the company and they're developing software for Motorola products. Motorola is dragging they're feet in developing new products and that's the reason they're losing money. The stock will take off when they return to profitability, but you'd need to be a patient investor. They're based in Des Moines, so you can talk to the management personally if you're willing to drive a couple of hours.

It isn't a state secret that the rapid decline in prices for 32-bit processors and flash memory presents tremendous opportunities for these companies and investment bankers have had no trouble acquiring capital in IPOs, secondary offerings, and convertible bonds. The non-Intel market is fragmented and overcapitalized and no company is making much money. An RTOS doesn't require a user interface for multiple apps, so a monopoly can't be established like Microsoft in the PC business. Radisys earns healthy profits because they have a monopoly on the Intel market.
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