Yes, I have been wrong and I have admitted that. I have not been wrong much if at all about the technology, direction of the market and the emergence of CCUR as a VOD leader. I have tried to be in front of all of this years developments and events giving a heads up from time to time and debunking stupid or uninformed posts that would lead investors into thinking that CCUR's position or technology was inferior. My predictions and the predictions of some others on this thread have been slow to materialize, but the good news is starting to flow like a river and I expect this flow for the next 4 months.
As for being wrong or my smart money posts. Well let's look at the facts. When the stock was rising and broke $3.50, I said smart money was coming into the stock. Yes, I knew White Rock was buying and felt that Soros would up their position to over 2 million shares as well. Knowing how White Rock has operated in the past (Data Dimensions, IGEN, etc), I felt they would help bring in other smart money investors and drive the price higher as the VOD picture (no pun intended) and CCUR's position in it became clearer. White Rock was the reason the stock trading so high, not my posts. They took out a lot of float and then got impatient when the stock started to move higher and they hit their SEC filing requirement. As you know, when a major investors files on a small company, the stock usually pops. You can see in their SEC filing that they paid up for the last 300,000 shares as the stock was running and they wanted to buy more prior to the 13-D filing.
We now know that little information surfaced after the White Rock entry and no other large investors bought in at that time. Without a large buyer to take out the float and buy through resistence levels, the stock surrenders to traders who sense the buying pressure has abated.
I also felt that my research and contacts had given me insight to the fact that SFA would work with CCUR on VOD, a major event and the truning point for CCUR's VOD future. My second mistake was to think that this announcement would be followed in weeks, not months, with other similar alliances followed by deals or selections from Cable MSO's. That river is now flowing, but about 4 months later than I had anticipated. I am no trader, but I know this industry and company fairly well and that is the value that I believe I bring to this board.
My first post on this board gave my opinion, my outlook, my research and my price target. The post is #3003 on March 22. It is a very long post (my trademark) and it was before I realized you had to make paragraphs (sorry). As you will read, the 8 months since that post have proven it very accurate and insightful. I mention a 12 month price target of $10 (cut me some slack because I backed off in other posts to the $8 to $10 target). I have 4 months to see if this part of my post #3003 is right. I would feel more confident if the timeline that I had expected had occured (meaning all the current events happening 4 months ago).
My last point to you is this. You have posted some positive things about CCUR and even some correct things about the industry and VOD technology. You have also followed up those posts with claims that have been proven false, but were false when you made them had you actually known what you were talking about (CCUR can't scale, SEAC deal/partys over, MSO's want PC solutions for VOD, NCUBE and Diva will dominate cable VOD, and the list goes on). Then you post that you know that CCUR will fail when it comes to commercial scaling (guess what, I know which company has been whispering that rumor in order to buy time for their own system or hope the cables will not bet on CCUR alone, but will select their company as a "backup"). You are entitled to your opinion, but my sources and reasearch say you are wrong. Post #3003 says I have been right and my tune hasn't changed, although I have attempted to explain the many new developments in the industry that would impact CCUR or the MSO's.
A case in point from one of your recent posts. I'll quote; "It took Diva over 18 months to scale up their service in just one cable head end system". You use this statement to mean that the MSO's won't finish integrating and testing these systems until the last quarter of 1999. Let me tell you why you are wrong (again). Diva had a different task in 1996 when they embarked on their business plan and sytems integration. They did not work with SFA or any other major euipment supplier. They built everything from scratch. They built and installed their own head end equipment, their own server, their own routers and even their own set top box. They had no beneift of SFA's 100's of millions in R & D into this area or their decades of system building and design. They reinvented the wheel and it seemed like a good idea back then. It doesn't anymore. What seemed like a steal of a price for a their high performance server is now one of the most expensive (although it performs well). They are scraping their set top box to allow SFA and GIC to incorporate their service (nobody wants two boxes on their set). They are desperately seeking ways to make their server cheaper and the biggest MSO's say they don't like their business plan.
The reality is that SFA is not reinventing the wheel. In fact, they invented it with Time Warner in Orlando. THey know how to make the sytem work. The integration and testing will happen over a few months not all of 1999. Part of the testing will be to scale up commerically in only a few markets. As the tests go well, the set top boxes roll in from SFA/Pioneer and the demand grows they will scale up a launch as many major markets as the equipment providers can handle (that comes straight from the horses mouth). Do you get it yet! Diva didn't have an SFA to help. As for all the other tests that have happened over the past 5 years. They were to create and test the technology and networks followed by tests to see if consumers were interested and if it was worth the investment to offer these systems and services. This is the last stage called beta testing. We all have worked for Corporations that have installed new computer systems or software. Do they just plug them in and let em roll on a Monday or do they spend weeks , sometimes months to integrate and test the system so that when they roll it out, it has few problems. Of course it will have some problems, which can be handled, perfected and then you go enterprise wide. Once you break that hurdle, it is easier to upgrade or install the system at another site.
CCUR has a great future and next few months will bear that out. I was off by 4 or 5 months on the events that are unfolding today. As I was wrong about new smart money coming into the stock after White Rock. I think that we are now closer to that happening and we know what it can do to the stock price. I have never claimed to be a trader. I have left that advising to others on this board. Their advice lately hasn't been so hot either. Good luck. |
