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Technology Stocks : Identix (IDNX) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: R. Jaynes who wrote (7209)	3/18/1998 10:47:00 AM
From: Hockeyfan	Respond to of 26039

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To: R. Jaynes who wrote (7209)	3/18/1998 10:52:00 AM
From: Hockeyfan	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 26039

Competitive Intelligence - During my three day travel experience with avalanches, altitude sickness and runway light outages due to excessive flooding I read an exceptional article by Bennett Davis on pages 24 - 29 of the March 1998 issue of the TWA Ambassador magazine titled "The Spy Who Came in With the Gold." I will summarize the main points. This article puts the flow, or lack thereof, of information from Identix to its shareholders in proper perspective. >>> Competitive intelligence, or CI as it is known in the trade, is a discipline to predict specific actions of particular companies - or to unearth information those companies probably would rather you didn't know. CI is not spying or economic espionage, in fact "economic espionage is the failure of competitive intelligence," according to the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professional (SCIP). "Fully 95% of everything your company needs to know is either already known by your employees or in the public record - if you know where to look." Says Jonathan Calof, associate professor of business at the University of Ottawa in Canada and a CI consultant to blue chip corporations. Technology, especially the internet, has made CI possible at the same that global competition has made it mandatory. **"The worst example we've seen of giving away the store is [a software consulting firm]," according to Robert Aaron, president of the Atlanta-based Aaron Smith Associates, a CI advisory firm. "First, they gave away tons of information about their services - including the precise steps they follow in some cases-providing any competitor with a good look at how they do business. They list as many as 50-plus customers for each of these lines of business. It's like handing your competitors a prospect list." *** If you use your imagination, there are legal ways to find out virtually anything you want. The best single opportunity to gather covert information may be trade shows. <<<< Sorry, this article is not available over the WWW. The best I could do is find a link to order a free copy of the magazine for $2.02 in postage. twa.com What is the point of me posting this article? 1) Anything posted on the web, or printed in a book or magazine by the company is public information, but that does not mean that everybody knows this information. IMO, a diligent searcher who finds this information and uses it to shape their understanding of the big picture can trade on it without breaking SEC insider information rules. 2) Identix must balance the need to inform shareholders with the need to avoid giving away the shop to its competitors. Everybody gets upset, including me sometimes, when Identix does not release numbers or time frames with its press releases that allow us to quantify the income statement impact of the announced contract. Is it better to support the stock price on a short-term basis through a constant stream of revealing new releases even though they might diminish the long-term performance of the company?