Elliot:
It turns out that after all that noise I made about it I was otherwise occupied. A marketing friend of mine called me a week or so ago about one of the big Govt. services firms with a task order in jeopardy. I am on as task manager on an emergency basis to see if it can be recovered by May 1. As a result I missed the call and had to listen to a replay.
Dave Janey from Paine Weber asked my question though, sharp guy. The one about 60% of work in hand having significant follow on. What I would like to know is if that work has the usual 10x more as follow on vs. the initial trial.
Very bullish seems an understatement. The IAI strategy is no longer in question and even the most reluctant skeptic must admit that. The low-ball target from CR of $60+ in 1999 will be rapidly exceeded if they revise based on the most recent data. IAI data shows many billions of lines of code in the target market, with no limitation in market size. Limitation comes in the form of factory capacity at IAI and their partners, and the amount of shrink wrap sales. The picture from the conference call is one of rapid growth in a huge market.
BTW, I was thinking profitable 1Q, but was not convinced.
IAIC will soar like an eagle for several quarters, and we will make money. The only remaining questions in my mind are 2:
1) IAIC publicity is lackluster, IR is not PR, will they achieve the exposure to the public that will maximize shareholder value?
2) Post 2000 initiatives with ORACLE and HP are nice, but what is needed is JAVA, CORBA, support for CA PC based 4GL's as targets, etc. IAI will need to position to catch the wave to 3 tier client server not the same old 2 tier stuff CAST was good at before all this. Support for CA rising partner Template Software and CA Jasmine and other NEW tools and languages are key as well. Do they have the vision --- AS A COMPANY --- to step up to this problem? Or will they fall back to a services only position or stick with mainframe only target languages and become once again obscure? I remain confident of bright prospects.
Given that they jump the above 2 hurdles, in conjunction with what we know is in the works now, IAI will become a significant market force IMO, even if CA buys them in 1999. So the future looks brilliant to me given the above.
...............Matt |
