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Strategies & Market Trends : ZixIt Corporation (ZIXI) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dale Baker who wrote (2627)	6/25/2000 5:04:00 AM
From: Dale Baker	Respond to of 4120

Oops - another sector analyst who doesn't understand ZIXI's TECHNOLOGY well enough to include it in his recommendations. After all, he only spends all day every day studying Internet security stocks. Maybe Ricky could give us some specifics on why he should focus on ZIXI instead? StreetBeat: Internet Security Stocks 23-Jun-00 20:08 ET This edition of StreetBeat takes a look at the Internet Security space. Recent market conditions have been very unkind to the tech sector and security stocks have not escaped some punishment. But with a compelling fundamental outlook, you might find this to be a buying opportunity. Joining us to discuss the prospects for this sector is Howard Smith , Internet Security Analyst at First Analysis. Q&A Briefing.com: Who are the market share leaders in the Internet Security space and what are their competitive advantages? Howard Smith: We divide the Internet Security industry into several subsegments and would characterize the leading company in each group as the market share leaders, even though a leader in one group may be much smaller than the No. 2 or No. 3 company in another, more mature segment. With that in mind, we highlight Check Point Software (CHKP) as the leader in the firewall/VPN space, Entrust Technologies (ENTU) and VeriSign (VRSN) as co-leaders in the public key infrastructure, or PKI, space, and RSA Security (RSAS) in the authentication and the core encryption markets. In all cases, these companies have solid technology. However, we believe it has been making the technology easy to use, combined with strong marketing and distribution, that has given them competitive advantage. Briefing.com: Given that this industry is still evolving and still determining all the security concerns that exist, which security issues do you see as holding the most promising growth prospects? Howard Smith: Security threats keep surfacing and changing, so promising growth areas keep developing. In the near term, we would highlight three areas that offer strong growth: VPNs, PKI, and authorization management. Virtual private networks (VPNs) allow entities to save significant cost by using the Internet to replace expensive dedicated leased lines. The primary issue in transitioning to the Internet is security, so the companies that sell software and equipment to make the Internet as secure as a private network should do very well. Public key infrastructure (PKI) is the only technology developed to date that can be used to authenticate, bind parties to, and securely transmit electronic transactions on a wide scale. The desire to perform high-value transactions over the Internet should drive this market. Legislation to be signed this month (and take effect in October) which will give electronic signatures the same full force and effect as physical signatures will only fuel this market more. Finally, with all the people being given electronic access to applications and content, limiting and tracking who has the right to and is accessing what areas is becoming extremely complex. Software that makes it easy to set up, track, and enforce security authorization policies is a third growth area. Briefing.com: Are there any non-market leaders that have a proprietary technology that would make them an attractive acquisition target? Howard Smith: This industry is ripe for consolidation and we see established geographic presence as well as technology as factors making companies attractive. From a technology standpoint, we highlight Cylink (CYLK) as having strong technology, but it has had execution issues over the years that have kept it from being a market leader in any of the most important segments. It is coming out with VPN and PKI product this year, and other companies may take a close look at it. Geographically, Baltimore Technologies (BALT) and Vasco Data Security (VDSI) have a stronger presence in international markets than in the U.S., and that makes them interesting from a market-reach perspective. Briefing.com: Which stocks are you recommending and or avoiding? Howard Smith: We are quite bullish on the sector, so we encourage investors to overweight the group. There aren't any stocks I follow closely that I would specifically avoid. Our favorites (strong buys) are Check Point (CHKP), Entrust (ENTU), and Vasco Data Security (VDSI). I have an accumulate rating on Axent (AXNT), Baltimore (BALT), Cylink (CYLK), RSA (RSAS), and VeriSign (VRSN).

To: Dale Baker who wrote (2627)	6/25/2000 11:03:00 AM
From: J.Y. Wang	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 4120

Dale, I agree with you, but you are taking ZIXI too seriously. People here realize that ZIXI in the long term is going the way of TGLO and the Dodo bird. Rick is a tout monkey and does not deserve to be taken seriously. He has offered no reason why ZIXI is a company worth investing in. ZIXI's press releases are vacuous and laughable and do not mention revenues -- does anyone seriously think that if substantial (or even any) revenues were involved in those transactions, Cook would have left them out? It's more fun just to bait Rick and ask about how his $70 ZIXI shares are working out. So now that the Soviet Union has collapsed and Slurpees transactions can be conducted safely, what other major problems does the free world have to worry about?