Asia Dave, Walked into a firestorm, Nahhhh! It's a Tempest! The best answer I can give to your many questions is to try and find the answer yourself, since this way you can trust your decision. What you have described in your post is a textbook example of a company moving from R+D to Production/Manufacturing. All the factors that you list apply to that transformation. The growing pains were there and we may still have some to go, but the worst of those are over, IMHO. We now have products to sell and ship that can turn those numbers around in an awful big hurry. A 2.5 M sale already has this ship heading in the right direction and 1 or 2 more of that size or even larger and we are on are way. How fast can it happen? Look at these charts for a glimpse of what goes on when you are in a Hot Tech sector.
chart.yahoo.com
chart.yahoo.com
chart.yahoo.com
Look at their numbers, before they made the leap to the 20's. You may find some interesting paralells to Franklin in there. Also keep in mind that most of the companies in this sector either manufacture hardware or sell minutes. We do both! Prior to the FNET IPO, when you purchase FTEL, you are buying, in a sense, FNET as well.
If you do not find the comparisons to your liking, then I suggest you look at companies that moved from a similar RD to P/M environments. Check out the numbers before and after, you'll see the same patterns.
BTW I would look at companies that had very successful products introduced to the marketplace, this way it WILL be a true comparison to FTEL.<GGGGGGGGGGG>
Best of luck,
Evan |
