Mr. Brown: I agree with you 100% that ZITL is overpriced. But what you are seeing is the mania of the Y2000 hypethon. My professor told me once that to measure the valuation of a mania using traditional yardstick was a kamikaze effort, and that the only meaningful way was to use the templates of the past mania as guides. You and I can keep on mumbling the word "overpriced" while this turkey flies. You are a big fish and have the staying power to argue with the tape. But not me. I am a small minnow who likes to take puny profit and run.
The Laidlaw report states on Page 35 as follows:
"Peritus Software offers an impressive Y-2000 component solution under the name Automate:2000. Peritus has focused on the middle part of the Y-2000 solution involving identification, conversion and limited testing. Automate:2000 draws upon the Company's expertise in maintenance technologies by combining its Mass Change Factory (MCF) product with its AutoEnhancer/2000. The MCF provides the process necessary to move large amount of source codes through AutoEnhancer/2000 and back into production while minimizing the disruption of the onging business operations. The AutoEnhancer/2000 provides the technology to automate the identification, correction, verification and test data generation tasks as well as generation of the software necessary to integrate an enhanced code and data subset back into production. Automate:2000 provides a sophisticated, highly reliable and highly automated engine for incorporation with other front-end solutions. The Peritus solution presently supports COBOL,and is expected to support PL/1 and RPG in the near future. The Company provides a workbench for assembly language. During early next year, the Company plans to introduce a shrink-wrap solution, called Peritus Lite, which will be a temporary fix of the date issue for customers who will not be able to complete their Y-2000 solution by the end of the decade."
"Peritus has been focusing on licensing Automate:2000 to service providers and does limited direct engagements. Peritus has accumulated
an impressive list of service providers who has licensed the tools. These include IBM/ISSC, Ciber, Computer Science Corp., LGS Group and Bellcore. Dominic Chan, CEO of Peritus, has done an excellent job in developing a highly automated offering and positioning the Company to substantially benifit from the Y-2000 opportunity. Even though Peritus is presently a provate company, we believe industry watchers should keep track of this company's solution."
Mr. Brown, now you see it.
My professor said, "What's the speed of its tools? What about reliability? I want some numbers. COBOL only? But we have mixed languages in our shop. Near future? Pure marketing BS. Define limited testing. Peritus Lite? Sounds like a big "kludge" to me. Prepare to defend yourself in court for this gimmick. My first impression? Peritus sucks."
My mom said, "Look at all the IBM software in the past, and you'll find there is one common denominator. They all suck 'cause they want to sell more hardware to compensate for the software deficiencies."
I said, "Sell IBM short the day after the IBM/Peritus announcement."
Respectfully,
Q3
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