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Technology Stocks : Wind River going up, up, up! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ehasfjord who wrote (9822)	8/2/2001 4:20:10 PM
From: Carol M. Morse	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10309

Wind Annual meeting...but first my disclaimer....... I'm sitting here in the dim daylight seeping through the fog, using a dusty magnifying glass to peer at my unreadable notes and trying to remember watt went on, so there's your grain of salt.... The meeting was held in the cafeteria again, with a fair amount of people filling up the place. I got the slide show handout and a coffee mug...whooopie. The formal part of the meeting went quickly, then Fiddler gave a slide show that was part of their marketing material, and then he and St. Dennis answered questions. Some of the highlights were: concentrating on working with clients to provide end to end capabilities, as well suppport services/training. He sees the tech recovery being led by semiconductor tech applications instead of PC's because of the move to internet and/or connected smart devices. Guidance down from May numbers because their customers are in trouble (Alcatel, Motorola, Lucent, Nokia, Nortel, Cisco, Hewlett Packard, you get the picture). In the DSL space they had contracts with 47 of the 52 companies, many of which are gone and the rest aren't spending on IT. Their clients are focusing on restructuring themselves and continue to do so, which adds the problem of order continuity. Fiddler gave an example: one of them recently laid off 1/2 of purchasing mangers leaving several orders dangling in the void, Wind's included. This was part of Wind's problem in predicting Sales, as well as delayed and/or reduced orders. Have had CFO's calling to negotiate small orders....worst environment in 11 years, so cutting costs in order to stay in the black. Cut staff 20%, renegotiate with suppliers, reduce travel, facilities consolidation, product line clean up. Cutting staff mostly in Internal Services, and Marketiing; trying to protect Product Development and Customer Support staff. This is because they have continued to work with customers on next generation products. See opportunities here due to restructuring of their clients who are starting to outsource production more and are focusing on new products. In spite of DSL troubles, Gateway products are still be deployed because they can hook to Cable too. Wind working on many new products with clients, such as Xscale (?) tech with Intel, and communicators with Siemens Automotive. Also may see some pickup in defense work, have a Certified Kernel for collision avoidance for on-the-ground aircraft. Wind still has to support more legacy products than they want to (PSOS), but transition to Vxworks will continue through next 2 -3 quarters. Can't predict when upturn will occur but feel that they and their clients have taken their medicine, and will be well positioned in the new product cycle. Whew! Then we got to go over to the tech display room and see some of their products and their customers products. This was mostly show and tell but it helped reassure us old ladies, and illustrated how complex everything is becoming and how well Wind manages this. Their gateway box was a complicated mix of circuits and chips that was flexible and easy to use. Some of this may not be completely accurate due to local weather conditions, so please make corrections if needed. I left feeling safe with my investment in Wind and am thinking of getting more (maybe they put something in the coffee), but don't know if it's time to jump in yet...... This is what 30+ days of fog storms can do to a person.... CMM