Hi Randall,
I disagree that Wi-Lan is an inferior company to Waverider. I can't comment on FreeWave because I don't know them. But I have fairly good knowledge of both Waverider and Wi-Lan. I have invested in both stocks. Waverider to me, at the moment, is more hype than anything. They have lots of exposure and money but no product. They have been touting their product release for over a year always pushing it out to the next quarter. And no one really knows who the heck this Elkatel Zao company is that they reportedly have a $30M contract with. With enough money and the right people maybe they can make a go of it. Basically they started with nothing but a shell listing and an existing technology that they were reverse engineering to try and form fit into a system that wasn't developed. I am skeptical about their market, the potentially high installation cost, and the emerging competing technologies. It sounds so exciting because they are talking about two key growing technologies: Internet and Wireless. Having said that, Wi-Lan on the other hand has products, strategic partnerships, licensing agreements, patents on leading edge wireless technologies and real customers! The downside I see at the moment is they don't have the visibility being on the Alberta exchange. That should change quickly as they move to NASDAQ or Toronto. They seem to be more focused on developing their products, markets and partnerships rather than hyping their stock. The two companies aren't necessarily competing through all the product lines. Waverider wants to sell to ISPs and set up a system where each house would have a wireless modem to connect to the ISP who has the system. Wi-Lan isn't selling modems for direct household connections to ISPs but is selling high speed LAN links. Although more recently Waverider is spinning off high speed LAN link products as well, but that's not what they envisioned going into it and that's not what was supposed to make the company. The contract with Elkatel Zao was for modems and wireless ISP systems. Waverider seems to go with the flow and Wi-Lan seems to know where they're going. We'll see. I was surprised to hear about Wi-Lan layoffs but I'll find out.
poorhouse
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