Humbly report, ztect, regarding your questions (which, by the way were not posted to me 'til now, therefore I did not answer them 'til now.)
So, regarding "How large is the market? How many products can the market support? Is this a good product? How much market share must be gotten to be profitable? Is this particular product being effectively marketed to generate market share?"
To the best of my knowledge, no reputable source has ever stated exactly how large the market is, nor how many products the market can support, so your guess is as good as mine. Gartner Group has put out some numbers, but they've been quite hyperbolic in the past, and proven to be wrong in many instances. One thing is certain. Virtually all sources agree that many more players will enter the y2k PC fix arena, and some reputable sources (quoted on this thread in the past) state that free fixes are bound to come. Please note that Microsoft has not yet seriously entered this field, with the exception of setting up a web site that helps sort out the y2k problems in their software. As y2k draws nearer, I fully expect them to come up with something to which most everyone on a PC will flock.
How good is MBCK? I'm not qualified to answer.
In any case, I hear that MBCK appears to be an altered version of Survive 2000, and I'm told that entities other than PINC have the unrestricted marketing rights for Survive 2000 version 1.3, and no one at this stage has the rights for version 2.1.
How much market share will PINC get? Well, they (or their "analysts") tell us that they expect 100,000 copies of MBCK to move per month. As I stated here before, the combined download numbers to-date for PC y2k fixes at one popular site number less than that, so to-date the market is small, and 2% of it is not going to help the PINC bottom line, in my humble opinion. (#reply-6213007)
Regarding the fluffy info on the CEO, let's judge the information once it is provided. In the mean time, to me, the non-informative nature of the disclosure remains yet another huge red flag, no matter how you want to look at it.
Cheers,
Svejk
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