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Technology Stocks : Enterprise Information Portals (EIP) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Carl R. who wrote (56)	1/30/2001 11:46:12 PM
From: Carl R.	Respond to of 183

I also note that while marketing continues to rise and G&A expense explodes, R&D has been slashed dramatically. For the last three quarters: June Sept Dec Marketing 7191 7024 7740 G&A 1401 1628 2439 R&D 2959 2797 2058 Note that R&D has been adjusted to include capitalized R&D. I also note that service revenue continues to rise at a nice pace but licenses were at the lowest level since Sept of 1999. I understand that the conference call was more bullish, and they projected sales this quarter of $8-10 million.

To: Carl R. who wrote (56)	1/31/2001 12:07:18 AM
From: Thomas DeGagne	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 183

Yes, VIAD performance has been disappointing. Management miscues have fundamentally weakened the company's competitive standing. The EIP is young and has a high growth rate: it is a poor time to be forced to downsize. Viador has good basic technology but it lacks the key intellectual property (IP) that is required to build a complete EIP. In my opinion, these are BI, DM and search/categorization. Lacking these elements, they miss a large percentage of the total revenue that is available as part of each sale. Hidden in cost of revenues are the licensing revenue they pay to other companies (eg: Verity). In the long term, it will be very difficulty for EIP specialists to compete with companies that own more of the IP required for a complete solution. I believe that consolidation is inevitable in this market. The long term opportunity is large and the opportunity to cross sell more sophisticated applications (BI & DM) makes it an appealing market for many companies. The EIP market also does not have a dominant vendor at this point. I believe that at least one company will attempt to become the 'gorilla' of EIP. If you agree, then the question we need to answer is this: Who will be the predator, and who will be the prey? Let's examine the EIP portfolio sorted by market capitalization: siliconinvestor.com Viador is dwarfed by the larger companies in the portfolio. They also have alliances and product integration with COGN, AUTN, VRTY, (BOBJ?), IBM and other large companies..... My point: Someone will buy them. Sorry to bring this post to an abrupt halt, but the hour is late. I would like to have a discussion on consolidation in the EIP industry. I'll post more on this topic tomorrow, but I'm hoping for some input from other SI members.