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Technology Stocks : General Magic -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Straight Up who wrote (7688)	1/12/2000 11:32:00 AM
From: Mark Oliver	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 10081

Surfing the Web by Voice A new concept called the ?voice web? promises to open up the Internet and its world wide web to anyone who has a telephone, regardless of whether they have a computer or not. If successful, the concept will provide a range of new revenue opportunities for carriers, both through the establishment of better customer relations as well as by making possible the operation of ?v-commerce?. Steve Ehrlich continued... telecommagazine.com Steve Ehrlich is vice president of marketing for Nuance. This article has no mention of General Magic. I am disgusted with this company. There is absolutely no value in being the best kept secret. I go to CES and speak to about 35 people working with AutoPC's and half of them never heard of General Magic. What sort of stupid management will allow this? Article after article comes out and no mention of GMGC. In the case of Steve Ehrlich, author of this article, his company Nuance supplies the speech engine for Portico. There is no mention of General Magic???? What the F***! I don't know if there is a strategy here, but I am selling my shares. No in one lump, but I am looking at every opportunity to sell. This company is a looser. I definitely want to be out before earnings are reported because I won't go another quarter with management telling me the shareholder I have no right to know more about the directions of my investment. I feel these people have abused me and I hate it. These people can sit in their little hole in Sunnyvale playing with all their cool technology, not letting anyone know what they are doing without me. By the way, they are not listed as WAP members even though they indicated to me they were. I don't think they are V-Commerce members either. Regards, Mark

To: Straight Up who wrote (7688)	1/12/2000 6:09:00 PM
From: Seconds Out	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10081

Hi Straight I agree that perception is important. "Its about perception. Lets face it, GMGC is trying to position itself as an "internet" company yet their key marketing tool - their web site - is awful! Check out successful companies - AOL, DELL, MSFT - you will never see an out-of-date web site. Steve Case and Bill Gates are continually touting their companies with notes at their sites." GMGC is at a slightly different stage of its corporate cycle than the premier companies you mention. I would guess that when each of those companies were at the stage of their corporate lifecycle that GMGC is at they, too, had to make decisions as to where to allocate scarce resources. Anyway, my point was only that the web site issue paled in comparison to issues of doing the next big deal and meeting its committments under the OnStar deal. "Becareful here - Do you remember last year when the first set of Preferred's dumped - we rose to 7ish then spiraled back down to 2-3range" One key difference. Last year they did additional Covertible deals after. The company says no more Shark infested Convertible Preferred financing ahead of us. Not that we can't see lower prices than current levels, but not having those guys with an incentive to legally short the stock for their own benefit is a major distinction,imho.It also helped to scare off institutional money, imho. This year, whether we crash and burn will be dependant on the company's ability to execute on its business plan to drive revenue producing deals. "But I find it very disheartening to see that they are not scheduled for one single marketing trade show. This means - no new product launches - no consistent name recognition - etc. In the years that I have owned the stock, this is the first time that they will NOT be marketing products." I would like to see them at trade shows as well, just for visibility. But I don't think it means they will not be marketing products. Just not through a trade show. It goes without saying, but General Motors did not find them at a trade show. The trade shows are nice for MyTalk, and to show off a bit. It does help to raise the public's awareness as well. I just don't know what shows they are skipping, or if any decent ones exist over the next few months. The deals and new products, as I know you are aware, are occuring on a much different level. I guess what I am saying is that although I would like to see and hear more about the products, I am invested here because I think GMGC will end up partnering with the industry leaders to provide them with the MagicTalk VUI. Though it is frustrating not to be getting more tidbits along the way about progress, either one believes that MagicTalk will be the VUI of choice, or one does not. The payoff here will hinge much more substantially on major deals occuring and sticking than it ever will on whether they are keeping us as up to date as we would like. Besides, I want them to be focusing on getting institutional investors interested. They say they are working hard at it. That is more important at this time for our long term benefit than placating the retail audience. If an AOL deal were to occur, for example,( and I am NOT saying it will), all of our other grievances won't mean squat in affecting the stock price. GMGC needs to focus on deals, on institutional ownership, and then on keeping us informed. In that order, imho. If they can do all three, then even better. I wish they would do all three, but I am allowing them some more time to see what comes out of all of their attention being focused on areas other than us. Take care. Seconds Out.