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Strategies & Market Trends : Gorilla and King Portfolio Candidates -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mike Buckley who wrote (11253)	11/27/1999 5:09:00 PM
From: voop	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 54805

Hi Mike I have not read Inside the Tornado so my questions may be naive but I will go ahead anyway. Confused about 1) Is the company putting all of its eggs in one basket (one market segment)? Not sure why yes would be good, perhaps we are victims of double negatives? 3) ) Is the size of the chosen market segment no larger than 2.5 times the planned total revenue of the company? How do companies plan total revenue, why would they limit themselves, whom does the planning and over what timeframe? 7) If that segment is eventually won, does it offer leverage to win over other segments? In other words, is that market segment truly a head bowling pin that knocks over one or two other bowling pins when it falls? Can you help us determine whether a bowling pin is a 1, 4 or 7? All this reminds me of an unclear premise overwhich I disagreed with Stockhawk a few thousand posts ago, i.e. GG authors state to buy enabling technologies in torandoes while buying application technologies in bowling alley was the route of choice. If true, does one need a basket of stocks if hunting for enablers? Have a safe flight home and two days late Thanks for all your Giving on this thread. Voop

To: Mike Buckley who wrote (11253)	11/27/1999 6:11:00 PM
From: djweiland	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

interesting post. However, I think you should pause on the first point. I played along with your game as a lurker back when it resided on the fool. I favored the basket approach, but modified it by my valuation model that lowers risk. Remember, we discussed this back then. The result is I purchased the basket of CRM companies that you were following, but not at the same time period. entry points--SEBL 17 AND 34(pre split), CLFY 10, RMDY 12, and VNTV 7.5. Note that my best return to date is in CLFY. I still hold all positions because I don't think the game is over. Hence it appears to me that the original gg premise of a basket of stocks is validated by this front office game. The questions that you asked in the post are indeed the correct ones to define potential upside. I submit that you need an equally analytical approach to define the down side.

To: Mike Buckley who wrote (11253)	11/27/1999 9:27:00 PM
From: John Stichnoth	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

Thought provoking. Can I try it on a nascent gorilla-wanabee? The company I'm thinking of is Zi Corp. (ZICA). It's a little company based in Calgary, developing software for the Chinese phone market. First, some statements on why they might qualify on Gorilla Game criteria: The market: The wireless phone business in China is exploding, but communication is hindered somewhat by the variety of dialects in Chinese, as well as the number of homonyms. Phone makers want to be able to allow the user to input text through their phones. Chinese is an ideographic, not alphabetic written language. The product: Zi has developed such a product. It allows efficient input (2-3 strokes per character) of the symbols. It can be installed in phones, and in fact is being sold in Ericsson phones now. The bowling alley: Zi has been knocking them down. The Ministry of Information has apparently designated Zi's input system as the preferred input system, and has entered into a couple of related items with Zi. Subsequently, 13 separate license agreements have been signed, including with Ericcson, Alcatel and Legend (China's largest domestic computer maker). The licenses are for various appliances, not just phones. Competition: One company identified, Tegic. [Query: Is the Ministry of Information competition?] Financials: Up until recently, they've been awful. But, the company's share price has rebounded to about $15 recently, putting $20MM in options and warrants in the money. That should be ample for the time being. Important: It is still not known what the prevailing licensing rate is. That will become apparent with next month's results, as sales of ERICY's phones ramp up (there were some in the last quarter, but its hard to tell how many). Discontinuous Innovation: This product has not existed before. It is satisfying a recognised need. It's been suggested that it's an interim solution; voice-to-text translators might supplant this. My take is that those are too memory and processor intensive to be of much use on portable devices in the short and medium term. Now, to Mike's corollary questions: 1) Is the company putting all of its eggs in one basket (one market segment)? Until recently, Yes. The company closed down or sold a couple of unrelated operations a couple of years ago. The expansion now is into related language input software, primarily for some European languages. 2) Is the company's product a whole product, not one that is 80% complete and thus unable to satisfy the pragmatists who occupy the earliest stage of the mainstream market? Apparently, yes. It's being installed into actual phones that are being sold. 3) Is the size of the chosen market segment no larger than 2.5 times the planned total revenue of the company? (The idea is that the company wants to have 40% of the segment's revenue and can't do that if the segment's market is larger than the company's capacity to own it.) I think so. The market is clearly huge--practically every input appliance that will be sold in China. The only question is whether Zi has been giving away the store with their licensing agreements. 4) Having decided on the market segment to "attack," is the market segement well funded and readily accessible to the sales force? The company has good presence in China, and good visibility. The chairman, Lobsinger, has been a featured guest of the Chinese Premier, e.g., at China/Canada summits. 5) Does that market segment have a compelling reason to buy? Described above. It appears that it adds utility at little cost, and thus will become standard in Chinese phones, pda's, laptops, desktops. 6) Is there no entrenched competition that can prevent the company from dominating the market segment? No entrenched competition. But, Zi is small. They don't have the muscle to battle China if there's a problem on that front. (Although they have shown by their patience that they seem to know how the game is played over there). Also, if any larger company wants to take them on, it will of course have lots more resources than Zi can bring on. 7) If that segment is eventually won, does it offer leverage to win over other segments? In other words, is that market segment truly a head bowling pin that knocks over one or two other bowling pins when it falls? Maybe the first "segment" was with the Ministry of Education, which was the springboard to the MII agreement, and the Ericsson and Alcatel and 11 other agreements. Maybe, the pins have already fallen. Or, do we need an extension beyond this? The European language input doesn't seem nearly so sweet to me, and doesn't dovetail with the China stuff. There. Done. Mike, I assume that in setting forth your corollaries, you want them tested. Do they work? Do they help weed out Zi? Or confirm Zi as a candidate? Best, JS

To: Mike Buckley who wrote (11253)	11/28/1999 9:03:00 AM
From: 100cfm	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

decided to take some time off from my time off. continued my hunt for guide plus which had to be cut short for my daughter's hunt for pokemon. sears at the adventura mall in miami 90 tvs, 6 with guide, all rca bestbuy 120 tvs 9 with guide, all rca circuit city 110 tvs 14 with guide all rca/proscan at first i was dissapointed in the low guide numbers and the lack of brand coverage contrary to another poster's findings in this region. but then the more i thought about it the more i became convinced that this is a good thing. the fact that G has performed so well with the product in only 5-6% of the market is a great sign. once G starts to fire on all cylinders(50%+ tv share, set-top boxes, cable, tv commerce, ad revenue) we should see an explosion in share price similar to Q and Jdsu.(not trying to hype, jmo) according to henry, G was to have 2 million tvs with guide by yr end. at 5-6% market share that means there is aprox 40 million tvs on display. as we approach the 50% mark there will be a tremendous amount of eyeballs seeing the gemstar name and product each day. that alone will provide incredible visibilty to the stock. 95% of the people don't even know about the product let alone the company. i also believe henry said that they would be at 5 million tvs at the end of Q1. that would be a 50% increase over this Q4. at that rate we would be at 50% sometime between Q3&Q4 of next yr. so some patience is needed but we are being nicely rewarded as we wait. another good thing. the following are my answers to the questions you posted. i selected the "heading into the bowling alley" catogory since i felt they were more appropriate then the "in the bowling alley" even though i feel G is in the bowling alley already and getting ready to tornado. Heading into the Bowling Alley To the extent that the answers to these questions about a particular company are "No," the company is less likely to move create a tornado. 1) Is the company putting all of its eggs in one basket (one market segment)? YES! 2) Is the company's product a whole product, not one that is 80% complete and thus unable to satisfy the pragmatists who occupy the earliest stage of the mainstream market? YES BUT STILL EVOLVING(WITH REGARD TO THE TV COMMERCE) 3) Is the size of the chosen market segment no larger than 2.5 times the planned total revenue of the company? (The idea is that the company wants to have 40% of the segment's revenue and can't do that if the segment's market is larger than the company's capacity to own it.) I DON'T THINK SO 4) Having decided on the market segment to "attack," is the market segement well funded and readily accessible to the sales force? YES! 5) Does that market segment have a compelling reason to buy? NOT SURE. 6) Is there no entrenched competition that can prevent the company from dominating the market segment? YES! 7) If that segment is eventually won, does it offer leverage to win over other segments? In other words, is that market segment truly a head bowling pin that knocks over one or two other bowling pins when it falls? YES! Hoping to have to spell Jugernaut with a G soon (also hoping to be able to spell jugernaut correctly someday.) 100 cfm