> Do they have some unique propriatary technology that
> someone with a long term view may decide to bail them out?
Unique proprietary technology? Well, there's the patent,
patents.uspto.gov
(that is, US Patent 5457560).
Besides that ... there's the software base. An awful lot of software goes into a piece of equipment like this. Can someone pick up BBTK's pieces and reuse/continue to use this software? It's a open question.
Besides that ... there's the people base. There's a fair amount of experience in developing and deploying a new product. In truth, BBTK has done it twice; with the first generation FLX-1100 and now with the second generation FLX-2500. Who know's how many integration tricks have been learned by the entire cast, from the first line of support to the HW/SW development teams through to the executive level?
Besides that ... there's the customer (or at least contact) base. Getting started isn't easy. However, BBTK has ZERO pull. It isn't a Lucent or a Nortel. If there's an integration issue, it'll always be BBTK's problem.
Is any of this useful to a prospective bidder? It would depend. If the bidder were Nortel or Lucent, I doubt it. If the bidder were another company, say a General Instruments, I'd think so. After all,
GIC's speciality was NOT telephony ...
Is there any intellectual property that BBTK has that, in and of itself, is extremely valuable? I could be wrong, but don't really think so. I'm not sure how valuable the patent is ... I guess the NLV suit will give us part of that answer.
Personally, I think BBTK is a gamble. If I had a huge portfolio, I'd place a small bet on BBTK; $5 or $6 per share seems awfully low for a stock that was trading in the $30's a year ago ...
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