Hello everyone. I've been lurking here for a while now, reading everyone's mostly bearish comments on Panda. I have been doing some research into this company to try to form my own opinion on whether they can be a successful turnaround story.
Since there appears to be quite a few ex-Panda employees and/or people who have had personal dealings with Stafford Crane and/or people familiar with the Panda Project story from years ago, I thought I would pose some questions here.
a) It seems to me that way back when they went public, their technology was viewed as sound and promising (hence the premium valuation they received) however their business model sucked. (hence why they've come off a high of around $50 to $4-5). Why didn't anybody buy them after they tanked for their technology?
I realize the obvious answer to this question is that their technology sucked back then and sucks now - BUT if that was/is the case, how did they ever get up to $50???? The market is efficient and unless investors were completely duped how did they justify that high a valuation? If investors were duped, then how come no class action lawsuits were filed?
b) Since they tanked after approaching the market with a flawed strategy (ie Archistat instead of focusing on VSPA/Compass), what have they been spending their R&D dollars on? Has VSPA/Compass technology been improved at all in the past year or two?
c) There seems to be a lot of negative references to Stafford Crane and his ability to function as a CEO. Without getting personal and nasty, can anyone qualify these statements from personal experiences? What makes him a bad leader?
I realize that a lot of investors must of lost a lot of money when the price collasped from $50, and thus they point the finger at the CEO - BUT there's a difference between a CEO who's moody, tempermental, with no leadership skills who's egotistical and driving his company into the ground (the impression left from most posters here) and a CEO who made some strategical errors in launching his company and is attempting to re-launch with a correct strategy.
(For those skeptics that think the latter description of a CEO does not exist, look at Open Text - went from $26 to under $4 because of a flawed business model - the CEO and other leaders made a "mistake" - it happens. They have since "turned" the company around with a revamped business model. Is it unreasonable to assume that this might be the case here with Panda?)
I'll be the first person to admit that RockCity looks like a pile of "crap". However I'll reserve judgement until I see some benchmark score for the version of RockCity with VSPA and Compass (and hopefully something more powerful than a 200Mhz processor!) As you probably have inferred from most of what I've written before, I think their new strategy is to focus on VSPA and Compass.
Thanks in advance for any responses. If anyone wants, they can feel free to email me their responses if they have 'personal' experiences with Panda or Stafford Crane, that they don't want to post publicly.
Cheers... |
