condemnation of management, mainly for being lousy at investor relations
Fair point, but I don't think that is the whole picture. It is one thing to have a vision, another to articulate it, and yet another to put enough evidence on the table to make it credible.
Inprise seems to have an overall communication problem, not just with analysts. They have articulated their strategy, but in a way that is very broad-brush and hence tends towards the trite. The conference call sounds like it had that flavour, larded with easy shots like "six-figure deals", "taking business from Iona and BEA", "beefing up the professional services team", "partnering" etc. Their product announcements tend the same way - ITS was a long list of features, AppCenter the same. I think they may believe that simply by including a particular feature or capability, they have done enough.
This "tick-in-the-box" approach is a hangover from their volume product business, where the feature list would appear on the packaging in this format. I hope they learn quickly that this is only a small part of what needs to be done.
david |
