Afaq,
It is of course possible that I am being unfair to Osicom and its leadership. Certainly, it takes time for results, so perhaps I was unreasonable to expect immediate acceptance of the GigaMux. My impatience is probably because I feel that the company "hyped" the IQX, and a year later it is not making much of a contribution. Likewise, we haven't seen press releases about major sales of the GigaMux, whereas we do see press releases that the competition is coming closer with their own DWDM products.
As far as the management, they brought together the pieces that have produced the IQX, the GigaMux, the Net+ARM, and brought the company the excellent facility in China. So they have laid a promising groundwork. I just doubt their ability to bring the results that we desire.
I do think that Par Chadha is motivated more by ego than by money, and that is why he won't give up the reins. There was a rumor a few weeks ago (spread on the Yahoo message boards), that he had resigned, and the stock was up sharply. I'm sure it must be painful for him to realize that he is a big part of the problem, but unless he is either a fool or blind, it must be obvious to him that he is viewed with suspicion, because of the (hopefully untrue) allegations in Barrons, because he has not had a very successful career (for shareholders -- for himself he's done very nicely), and because he is viewed as a hypester (who announces that new products will bring big results to the bottom line, and then a year passes without anything happening).
He must realize that he is viewed in this negative light, and that Osicom would probably flourish if he left and an experienced and successful manager were brought in (not his wife or cousin, Bubba). Osicom would flourish for Charles, and for Afaq, and for David, and even for Par himself, as the owner of millions of shares.
But resigning would be too painful for his ego, and so he chooses instead to destroy OUR stockholder value, as well as his own. In the end, I suspect that he will be the owner of millions of shares of a worthless stock, and he will probably be living under a freeway with me. But he will still be able to say that he's not a quitter, and he'll probably blame his condition on nasty short-sellers. |
