Good points, Ed.
Let me just add that AXC doesn't even have to showcase its high quality video and audio technology right away. For instance, there's a mad scramble currently underway to provide a free service for shareholders by streaming the conference calls of the top 100 Nasdaq companies over the internet in 1999. Broadcast.com is at the forefront of this effort and it's going to reap a tremendous amount of goodwill and visibility among its current and potential stockholders. Now, if Ampex had bothered to put up a website while it mulls over its acquisition strategy, it would be in a position to join in the fun and use its technology to distinguish itself from the crowd. Because of bandwidth limitations, it's necessarily cheesy audio versus cheesy audio, cheesy video versus cheesy video at the start.
Before there was a chicken in the chicken and egg riddle, there was a genetic break that involved a non-egg-laying predeccesor to the chicken. What we may have in Bramson is an ex-wall-street-whiz turned technology corporate raider --- ala Asher Edelman who seemed to be paralyzed into inaction as his Datapoint tailspinned out of the NYSE --- who is still struggling to adjust to the internet economy. At some point, Darwin's rules just take over.
Look, I don't mean to come down too hard on Bramson because he certainly has a much larger stake in Ampex than I do. And I have never even once suggested that his ulterior motive is to ultimately take Ampex private and break it into small pieces and sell it. He can't do that without getting into trouble with the Pension Benefit Guaranty Fund that has the power to declare any plan "open" which would allow it to go after even the personal assets of the principals of a company. AXC is still on the hock for the pension plans of Quantegy -- the old tape biz -- that was given to a creditor group during the 1994 reorganization. But jeez, when Catholic Bishops can see the potential of the web and are acting posthaste to prosleytize and sell merchandise via Jesus2000.com while Ampex is still thinking about it, one has to really wonder if Ampex high command is really in the words of Jonathan Moreland of InsideTrader, "...waiting for salvation." |
