I'm not convinced INTC buying little iCAT will make a difference for OMKT. For one thing, the e-commerce market is going to be vast. I'm going to take the liberty of reposting THREE good reads (which address the issue of MARKET-SHARE) from November 28th on the Yahoo OMKT thread courtesy of a poster called AugustWest79, starting with message 9358:
Early adopters
by: AugustWest79 (36/M/Denver Colorado) 9358 of 10142
As discussed briefly yesterday, some were concerned about OMKT analyst rating and recent revenue growth or lack thereof. I have been in OMKT for nearly a year now and have done extensive research on them, in my opinion the drop in their performance lately has been due to a lag in e-commerce adoption bewteen the early adopter types that took the plunge right away and the more conservative mainstream companies. This resulted in flat sales the last couple of qtrs and OMKT's stock was punished severely for it - if not we'd be at $50 right now after having run to $29 in April.
But IMO all that is about to change. Anywhere you look these days e-commerce is the rage. The mainstream companies will now be flocking to e-commerce in order to compete. Security issues which were once a big fear have been largely resolved. The economy slowing a bit is actually good for e-commerce uptake as companies seek ways to remain competitive or boost sales. It is clear now I believe that those Co's that don't foray into e-commerce will be left in the dust. If you follow such things industry forcast for amount of e-commerce in yr 2002 or whatever keep going up with each round of new numbers that comes out.
And the stocks, wow if a company can invest say $500,000 to purchase/inplement and maintain an e-commerce presence and get a $200M boost to their market capitalization, what a way to increase shareholder value! What comapny wouldn't want to do this? All of this is increasingly coming to light right now.
Accordingly, I look for OMKT CSP business in particular to begin increasing dramatically. This is one area that has been discussed at length on this board as a reason for their slowing down growth wise. I believe we have just seen a lag or gap between uptake by the early adopters and the mainstream companies. OMKT was very popular with the early adopter crowd hence their 30% market share in 1997 and blue chip list of clients. One look at their installed client base will tell you something is up with these guys. These firms would not being buying the stuff if it wasn't any good. Also now that many of the CSP's have been around for awhile, many of the companies they have signed up will coming up on 1 yr, and OMKT will be getting a revenue boost from the annual licensing fees.
OMKT's recent layoffs show that they have heard the wakeup call and are taking the necessary steps to correct the situation. Apparantly they "built out" too fast thinking e-commerce was going to take off quicker than it has, but now they are trying to get leaner and meaner. Many companies have done similar these days - AMAT layed off 20% (?, might just be 15%) and promptly went up nicely. Shows proactive steps to reduce costs which is a good thing.
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Posted: Nov 28 1998 9:43AM EST as a reply to: Msg 9356 by AugustWest79
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