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Technology Stocks : Aspect Telecommunications (ASPT) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Pendergast who wrote (1733)	5/8/2000 2:20:00 AM
From: John Pendergast	Respond to of 2018

Well, it looks like Beatriz got there first on the privacy issue. See: wpc-edi.com

To: John Pendergast who wrote (1733)	5/8/2000 3:42:00 AM
From: Herschel Rubin	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 2018

Report from the Shareholders Meeting I was in attendance at the ASPT Annual Shareholder's meeting on May 4th. As my holding in ASPT represents the second largest investment in my portfolio, it has become obvious to me that I should go to the meeting to meet, or at least observe, management in person. Upon meeting people my intuition is usually right on target, and I must say I was favorably impressed. At the wine & cheese gathering upstairs after the general meeting, I had the pleasure of meeting mostly all of senior management, including Beatriz and JC. They were extremely nice people with a good balance of humor and business professionalism. Definitely my type of people. This is a company I would love to work for back in the days when I used to "work for a living" in the software business. Following is a summary of impressions: There were perhaps 70-90 people present. The meeting took about 55 minutes and was conducted in a very efficient and businesslike matter with JC running the first part and Beatriz Infante delivering the CEO's presentation. Agenda: 1. Meeting called to order 2. Review Procedures 3. Introductions 4. Business meeting (Proxies voted, etc). 5. CEO's Presentation 6. Q & A Session. And, yes, as I had predicted, JC DID receive a standing ovation when Beatriz took the podium and suggested that JC deserved a hand for his stewardship of the company from day one. Beatriz's presentation highlights: 1. She gave an overview of the ASPT portal and its place in eCRM. 2. She presented a chart showing how ASPT's recent quarterly revenues EXCEED those of KANA EGAN, and E.piphany COMBINED. And ASPT is PROFITABLE whereas these are not! Those of us on the Quarterly Conf. Call already knew this, of course. 3. Then she presented an excellent tabulation of features ASPT has versus the competition, including LU, CSCO, Octane, Quintus/Mustang, etc. In summary, ASPT has a more comprehensive offering than ANY of the other players. Some even have gaping holes in their offerings. So it would appear that ASPT has a substantial lead in eCRM. 4. A pie chart showed ASPT's diverse customer base, from publishing, to financial, to manufacturing, etc. In other words, ASPT customers are neatly diversified across many business sectors. 5. With respect to the recently announced $50 Million Venture Fund, she said, "We're having tremendous success with it so far..." 6. With regard to the ASP Hosting strategy, she said, "We'd like to be a very big company 5 years out..." ------------ Also mentioned at the meeting was the fact that bulldozers have been breaking ground for new office buildings on the adjacent parcel of land north of Corporate Headquarters. This means expansion, expansion, and more expansion. My rough estimate would be that the new building may represent a 50% increase in office space for Ridder Park Drive office. And also note ASPT's recent hiring binge. You don't have to be a rocket scientist (or even a JAVA programmer) to understand this company is going places. It was also apparent that JC knows his business better than any of us and put the company's future ahead of his own glory, so to speak. He had the foresight to see the writing the wall about the commoditization of proprietary call-center hardware. He always had a plan to step back once the company was running smoothly (which he couldn't do until he was comfortable with the transition). He had the foresight to select Beatriz Infante for the job. (Although I liked President George Bush, one thing I always resented was his choice of Dan Quayle as VP. Why? Because I think George Bush didn't want anyone on board who would UPSTAGE him, so he chose someone as pathetic as Quayle. What Bush gave up was the chance to groom a viable successor. Really a poor choice.) Well, we can be assured that JC did not suffer from the Bush-Quayle syndrome. Rather, he seems to have gotten one of the best minds from Oracle when he hired Beatriz (poor Larry!). Beatriz undoubtedly had a difficult job to transition a hardware-centric company into an e-commerce/internet software company. Change is not always pleasant... In my experience, there are always those people who think they somehow have a 'right' to remain employed in a company if they've spent so many years there. Kind of a socialist mentality. But in the Silicon Valley, natural selection is 'de rigeur'. If you're not contributing, you don't belong. If the market changes underneath your feet, your business must stay afloat and be able to morph itself one or many times. We all have undoubtedly observed fellow employees who are inflexible and cannot morph themselves in line with changes in the business climate. But for those individuals, there's always jobs at the U.S. Post Office for those who see a company as a social welfare program. To those negative posters here, I suggest they should get with the program and buy this stock. It's a keeper. After the shareholder's meeting I contacted numerous associates and suggested that they look into buying ASPT and putting it away for 5 years.