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Technology Stocks : IFMX - Investment Discussion -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Austin who wrote (10824)	5/18/1998 9:34:00 AM
From: Robert Graham	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 14631

Bob F has been spending all of his time overseas with key foreign customer accounts. It does not take the CEO to go in person to every foreign office to rebuild the sales staff. The time has been spent bolstering customer relationships to close deals, not enhancing his relationship with sales staff abroad. For that matter, if all he wanted to do was shake hands with his VPs abroad, he would be periodically flying them in for a couple day visit. Competition abroad is not as competitive with Oracle and their most significant competitors as it would be locally here in the United States. That Informix is spending the time of their CEO abroad when Informix and their key competitors are U.S. based companies with a competitive market here in the U.S. is unusual in itself. But then the United States is where the very significant competition would be, the more costly competition. Focusing efforts abroad is not uncommon by companies that for one reason or another cannot effectively compete locally. For instance, the company may not have a competitive product that us in demand locally, or in Informix's case may not want to assume the cost in pursuing sales in this very competitive local market. Keep in mind that from all the indications I see, Informix is financially just surviving with not being able to procure the needed credit to fund a turn around. Their future beyond this quarter has not been assured little alone their ability to reach former sales and earnings figures, which is what a turnaround is all about. This company is not even making any money at this point in time. IMO Bob F is approaching his turn around on a cost basis since at this point for the short term cash flow will make or break this company. This is why among other criteria I would want to see positive cash flow from operations, the ability for the company to procure of a line of credit seperate from the financing of their receivables, and the win of key sales accounts that are local to them here in the United States, before I will take the turnaround effort seriously. IMO anything up to this point in time is done just to survive to the next quarter. Bob Graham