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To: Scott H. Davis who wrote (299)	2/6/1998 3:29:00 PM
From: HeyRainier	Respond to of 1720

[ Perle Systems: currency adjustments for earnings ] I just contacted the CFO of Perle Systems again. It appears that our conversations about the estimates, as well as the research reports I have been reading, were based in the Canadian currency. Currently, the exchange rate is about $0.70-$0.75 US Dollars per Canadian Dollar. I am hence reducing my target price for the stock to a minimum of $3.00 (and an upside potential target of $4.00 based on TA) for the 12-15 month time frame. Also Scott, I will be forwarding the concerns to the CFO tonight. I expect to receive a reply sometime next week, as he said he will review them over the weekend. Regards, Rainier

To: Scott H. Davis who wrote (299)	2/10/1998 11:36:00 AM
From: HeyRainier	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1720

[ Web Page ] I've been trying to build a web page these past few days so that others on the thread can see just what it is that I see. Since SuperCharts has virtually no Windows integration capabilities that I know of, I bought myself a copy of Window on Wall Street at a nice discount from Egghead Software (since they're closing down). I'm not quite able to see the same kind of format for the indicators, so it's going to take me a bit longer before I can get the thing fixed up. The most important thing I am trying to do is trying to get the web page to show the image that I uploaded from Word 97, which has the W.O.W. chart pasted on it. Rainier

To: Scott H. Davis who wrote (299)	2/14/1998 12:56:00 AM
From: HeyRainier	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1720

[ PERLF: Management Speaks ] Scott, I took the liberty of forwarding your concerns to the CFO of Perle Systems. Here is my e-mail to him: Dear Doug, Thank you for taking the time to answer some concerns raised about Perle's products. The following is from a response from Scott Davis, who is helping me further assess the viability of Perle's products in the marketplace. He is responding to a link I provided him from the Perle Home Page, in particular, the article from Brooks Talley of InfoWorld, on May 19, 1997. Here is the link: infoworld.com I gave him a lot of links, but I had him focus on the negatives. Here it is: --------- "...Reviewed the link, and again, my general impression is good. There are two deficiencies the reviewer adressed that I find material. Since it was a May '97 article, I'd recommend checking with PERLF to see if they have addressed [Brooks Talley's concerns]: 1) "...Like most communication servers, though, the Perle 833 doesn't integrate at all with existing security structures. It doesn't support Novell Directory Services (NDS), Windows NT's security, or even remote access dial-in user service. Support for NDS and NT security are in the works, but Perle officials declined to specify when they would arrive..." The security issue would have the potential to cause an IS department to reject it (network administrators are generally VERY security conscious). 2) "...My only other complaint with the unit was the lack of 100Base-T support. On a fully configured unit, with all eight ports going full blast, the Perle 833 really needs its own 10Base-T segment..." The bandwidth issue is also material, especially for dial up web use. A trend that I find unfortunate is for sites to add a lot of visual slicks, imbedded JAVA aps, etc. into web pages. Unfortunately, that also results in moving a lot of data over the lines. And if you are connecting to a client/server application running a large or complex SQL database but are not in "thin client mode" ala Citrix, a dial up connection needs a LOT of bandwidth to be viable. For examle, we had to abandon use of a dial in connection running 28.8 modems to a home health system running Sybase SQL on a Win NT server because the sheer amount of data the application was sending over the line resulted in incredibly bad response time, to where it became a productivity loss. So I would check to see if they've addressed those issues, because they are very relevant to a purchase decision..." -- Scott --------- Overall, the impression Scott was left with was positive, except for the above, possibly unaddressed issues. When time becomes available, please let me know how Perle has addressed, or plans to address, the above issues. End of e-mail. Management's Response Dear Rainier: I have the following comments with respect to the issues you raised in your most recent E mail. I have dealt with them in the same order that you gave them to me. 1) Security issues: The reviewer has raised three security issues, those of Novell Directory Services (NDS), Windows NT security and remote access dial-in user security (RADIUS) all of which have been addressed with the Perle 833. RADIUS and NDS support were released into the Perle 833 in April 1997. Windows NT security was released to our customers in January 1998. All Perle 833 customers can receive the new software functionality free of charge during the warranty period which is the first 12 month of ownership. 2) Bandwidth The issue here is the Perle 833 capability in connecting to the local area network. The concern raised is that when transmitting a large amount of data from a local area network across a wide area network using a Perle 833 with a 10Base-T ethernet connection to the local area network, that this will be a problem with respect to productivity. Theoretically this could be true however it is most likely that the amount of traffic ie users on the local area network, the speed of the wide area network and the speed at which the remote device accesses that network would have a greater impact on the productivity or throughput. In the marketplace for fixed port RAS, such as the Perle 833, the usual remote device connecting to the RAS is a remote PC using normal telephone lines. This communication usually takes place at speeds below 38K. At this speed a Perle 833 8 port device connected to the LAN at 10Base -T ethernet is capable of handling all the data traffic without productivity losses. If however, remote users are transmitting large amounts of data a faster network connection may be required, such as a T1 or E1 or ISDN. In these cases rather than using a fixed port remote access server a concentrator may be required. The Perle 833AS to be released this month, February, is capable of connecting to both 10Base -T and 100Base-T ethernet local area networks. This feature is auto-sensing with no additional configuration is required. I hope this addresses the issue of concern, as always please feel free to either contact me via E mail or telephone directly. Doug Langford