Spoke to Steve Markee and Ken Lanci. Concerns Addressed. INNI outlook
is quite positive.
Most of my concerns have been in the market penetration arena regarding the Netscape offering. You can read my previous post for details. Findings can be summarized as follows:
1. I/Net current product sales are NOT being canabalized by the pending Netscape release, as they target different customers on different releases of OS/400. Market niches.
2. The Webserver/400 competes well against IBM's "free internet server" because I/Net "customer care" oriented services accompany the product.
3. The Webulator is also strong, where customers want to rapidly webitize legacy apps.
4. The NT side of the box has limitations that more orient it to personal use applications, and not server applications. So, in my comparison of Netscape native vs. Netscape on the NT side of the AS/400, the native side would win as it has access to things like the OS/400 object oriented built-in database, that NT would not. Steve does not see this as a problem.
We discussed an assortment of things ranging from the 2/9 press release, to new product releases and features of the CommServer, to how the CGG acquisition would be realized should the market not give INNI the appreciation it requires.
I spoke largely with Ken about the acquisition(he did call me back last Friday, and I got back to him yesterday). Ken acknowledged that INNI would be taking on CGG related debt. He was not specific regarding amounts, but did not feel it was problematic.
Overall these two gentlemen are close, quite knowledgeable about customer, prospect, and their businesses, and quite optimistic about the future of I/Net.
jw, rates INNI a STRONG BUY. |
