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Technology Stocks : SSA (SSAX) BPCS/Client Server -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Peter W who wrote (750)	4/8/1998 9:01:00 AM
From: MAURICE J. SADOWSKY	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 915

R. Covey like most of us has his faults --so it may be time to put some of the record straight--remember this is off the top of my head--but I believe it to be pretty accurate: 1. He resigned from the company management about 1991 or 1992 to pursue a very demanding MBA course at the University of Chicago. He got two degrees--one an MBA in Oriental Art where is an aknowledged expert and the second an MBA in Business--I can tell you from personal experience with friends who have entered that program it takes a 100% comittment--no social life and work work work. 2. It was Larry Ford who signed the infamous Owens Illinois contract (about 6.0 million) to supply the standard AS400 product and work toward a BPCS product based on Skybase software (which they did not have and still do not have and may never have unless the Skybase makes some changes in its data base system). So it went to court--got real nasty--settled out of court--bad publicity-- by heresay--I cannot prove it --Owens Illinois subsequently fired their CIF and now uses SSAX BPCS--(again I state that this is heresay and I cannot verify it!!!!!). 3. The early version of BPCS evidently was not a good product--when Covey took back control of the Company at the annual meeting he stated that one of his first goals would be to return profits to pre Client Server levels--that lasted just one quarter when they made some good progress. 4. Then the problems started to come out of the woodwork so to speak--as an outside observer of the company I observed the following: 4.1 SSAX purchased an English company developing ERP software 4.2 Barkowski got fired or left--at any rate he was replaced by Shakir 4.3 Massive spending on development--by may calculations it must have been close to $200 million--but again this is a guess. 4.4 Introduction of BPCS was early and did not meet expection of customers--again my opinion. 4.5 As money grew short--all areas of the company except R&D suffered. 4.6 Well from here on you know most of the rest of the story-- My point is that R. Covey made some bad decisions but not all were bad and not all of the company's problems were of his making. We investors may never get to full story--do we really want to know. What has happened here is a test of will and arrogance that has happened many times before and will happen again--I can remember back to the hey days in copper when one of the riches companies in the US literally was distroyed by the arrogance of the CEO. The story even today is only believed by those who viewed it first hand. Lets all give W. Stuek our support and wish R. Covey the best in his new venture (whatever that may be). Maurice J. Sadowsky Chicago