To: Stuart C Hall who wrote (1503 ) 3/9/2000 8:27:00 PM From: A.L. Reagan Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 3070
Stauart, Greg et al - glad you've done so well on INSP so far. Hope at these levels you've got your stops in place. INSP fulfills a useful purpose - they are the "new economy" version of the traditional wholesaler or independent rep, buying (or repping) from the product manufacturer (content providers), repackaging, and selling, or brokering to the retail chain (read dot-coms and wireless carriers), who sell to the ultimate consumers (us). Particularly in any developing market, this function has some degree of value. It is also a field that is fairly easy to enter and exit. There is an advantage to wholesalers who have "gotten there first" in terms of establishing relationships with the manufacturers and retailers. However, wholesalers are extremely vulnerable to pricing pressures from new entrants. It is important to understand where a stock lies in the value chain. For example, take wireless. Anybody who confuses a repackager/aggregator with a company with proprietary technology (like a QCOM) in the same tornado needs to have their head examined. Or if you confuse the QCOMs, PALMs, MSFT's, etc. with the retailers (Sprint, VOD, the BB's, etc.) The fact of the matter is everybody and his brother is getting in this field. Reformatting other people's content to work on WAP browsers and the like just ain't that hard technically. The INSP part of the business is basic pick and shovel dealmaking work - go to the content guys with your program, go to the wireless carriers, write some fairly simple conversion software, and shazam, the restaurant guide is on your cell phone or Palm. So, being an wholesale "infomediary" fulfills a useful function. However, the history of capitalism for the past hundred years has been that wholesalers just don't ever have sustaining margins. The world is not, in any sustaining way, going to pay INSP $25 billion for performing this service. So, as long as Naveen and crew are willing to run around brokering infomediary deals without taking too big of a "cut", the content providers and dot-coms or wireless carriers are more than happy to let him do it. They all have plenty on their plate already, and Naveen brings them "ready-made" deals, pre-packaged and gift-wrapped. And, even though he's really not developing any kind of sustainable proprietary margins, the stock price keeps going up and Naveen can keep doing what he is doing so well - make deals, issue PR's and watch the stock rise. But if any of you think that on a long term basis the world is really going to pay INSP the present value sum of $25 billion to perform this brokering/wholesaling activity, and if you hang around too long once this reality becomes blatantly obvious, you will be the folks trampled to death when the masses exit the burning theater. In the meantime, my hats off to you longs for having the cajones to stay in this house of cards. I would love to short the hell out of this stock on the fundamentals, but there's too many of you guys who keep buying and would eat my lunch. But, at the first sign that the bubble is bursting, INSP will be at the top of my list. (Hope when that happens one of you guys buys thinking it's only a dip, so I can get an uptick to short!) Disclosure: not an anti-tech curmudgeon - holdings include QCOM, ORCL, HOOV (pre-IPO), SUNW, WCOM, JDSU, GSTRF (ouch). Comments on INSP relate solely to current valuation versus its place in the overall value chain. Wish you all well. Be careful. The vultures are circling.