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Technology Stocks : Data Race (NASDAQ: RACE) NEWS! 2 voice/data/fax: ONE LINE! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: Niels Larsen who wrote (25515)11/13/1997 7:45:00 PM
From: Marshall  Respond to of 33268
 
Nobody asked about a "Plan B" so I suppose you could ask in a letter.
I think they've concluded it will sell as it already has been selling.
Certainly not in any significant volume yet but the proper signs appear to be present.



To: Niels Larsen who wrote (25515)11/13/1997 11:48:00 PM
From: Ignacio Mosqueira  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 33268
 
Hi Niels. I have to agree with you that salespeople enthusiasm by itself is not enough. Dr was also optimistic at first about its direct effort yet it failed. IMO one has to be convinced that the reseller effort is significantly different that the direct sales effort. Of course there is always the name that is doing the selling but there is much more to it than that. I am very encouraged by the fact that DR has dropped all talk of f100 companies, road warriors, and conference call centers. BT will sell to whomever wants it and the resellers will decide that. At this point DR is largely a PR firm for BT and they better get input from the resellers on how to do their job. I believe they are doing that. Of course there is also new deals but that is another matter.

DR approached f100 companies because it needed large orders from each buyer for the direct effort to be successful. I am no expert but I understand from statistical studies that as a percentage of the workforce f100 companies have few telecommuters so remote access is not necessarily a pressing issue to them at this time. Plus there is the issue of the layers of management. By concentrating on them DR was banking on being able to convince them to get a telecommuter program in place and do so with BT! Not easy. Road warriors need few servers per worker, and call centers (according to BB
whom I e-mailed about this) prefer isdn in many cases. That may well come but it is not here at present. So the direct effort had no chances from the get go. By itself DR would have run out of money faster than gotten revenues.

What is different now is that resellers will and can target many different company sizes and worker profiles. I see companies with an established yet growing telecommuter workforce as a prime target at this time. Those tend to be second tier companies. My understanding is that DGN has been having meetings with many such companies in coordinated events. The CC mentioned a range of just such comapnies. BT will give these companies the flexibility of adding workers painlessly as well as facilitating telecommuter programs. Because they already have telecommuters they have felt the need for BT and need less convincing. A purchase decision would not be dependent on concurrent deployment of the telecommuters. DR did not have the manpower to tap these companies before.

In fact because resellers can sell to anyone chances that this product will not find a market are greatly reduced. Given the risk reward this stock should be around 10 now that the financing uncertainty has been removed.

Some market acceptance will propel us to 50. Wide market acceptance will probably require ATT. Of course an ATT deal is much more likely once the need for BT has been shown.

All just IMO of course!