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Technology Stocks : InfoSpace (INSP): Where GNET went! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TH who wrote (23551)	1/23/2001 11:36:30 PM
From: Bag of Pucks	Respond to of 28311

The Street always hates uncertainty. That is what analysts do. They take some known facts which is all they have to go on.. ie growth of the internet, growth of earnings and project it to the moon, hence we get sky high valuations. However, if things go south, they extrapolate the same way and that is why we go waay down. Look at DELL, INTC etc. Earnings warnings and stocks go waay down, now that earnings are out (barely met revised lower estimates with downward guidance) they go UP! That is the name of the analysts' game. SO, INSP 'lost' key execs, so the speculation is that more will leave, strategy at a stand still?? I don't know. But I do know that three people do not run an entire company. But looking at it objectively, Sarin is still Vice Chairman - so his contacts and knowledge in the Wireless Space is still valuable to the company. I don't know if the real reason for his diminished role is distance/family but on one hand, it IS unreasonable to have a CEO telecommute from SF to Seattle! and on the other hand, it is unreasonable for someone to take up the job if they are unwilling to relocate so who knows. Perhaps, INSP should open a new office in SF? With the merger of what once was two 4BillionDollar companies, there was bound to be duplication of CFO,CTO and other talented but 'expensive' management staff so factoring egos, control etc, there was sure to be some movement. I think there's frustration on this thread because amongst other things (like languishing stock price) Russel was the founding forefather of GNET. Now that he's been reduced to a 'consultant', there seems to be a big loss. However, from what I gather from this thread, the future direction of this company is in the Wireless applications and to a lesser extent Broadband applications. That is all people talk about lately. GNET was never strong in either of those. The Future (forseeable) is not in search engines, message boards, web hosting although i'm sure people will say that GNET is a lot more! Ad revenues are declining, subscription model still unproven. I would not blame GNET's declining stock price on any person(s) or merger. Russell has done an outstanding job of bringing GNET to this point but if GNET was standing alone today, I would not have the same optimism for this company, judging by what's happening in the internet sector. We used to judge this company by Media Metrix ratings, page views, unique visitors, hits... i mean, that is so 1999! Game site and Broadband promises still undelivered (but not saying it is GNET's fault!) Russel is an eloquent speaker as someone pointed out, but I would hardly think that someone like Jain would relinquish the voice of INSP to someone else. I think that Russ did sell out in this Merger/Acquisition and though 'sold out' is such a distasteful term, I only wished I did!!<ggg> I just hope that he will stick around and give valuable 'consultation' where needed. But until some analyst can give me some compelling evidence/story that Wireless will not be widely adopted (my biggest worry), then I will still keep on believing that this company will do well. The contrarian in me will not allow me to buy stocks going up (OPWV) so i definitely view this as a buying opp for INSP!! Good Luck All (except the shorts... sorry!)