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Technology Stocks : Wind River going up, up, up! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: peter grossman who wrote (3251)	5/29/1998 1:20:00 PM
From: Ronald Paul	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 10309

Hi Peter, Lag time is typical in this industry. In my decade of experience, from the time an RTOS has been chosen (contracts signed), development lifecycles have been squeezed from about 3 to 4 years down to 9 to 18 months where 12 months seems to be the average before manufacturing ramp-up occurs. After that, filling the channels at full steam takes another 2 to 4 months. Payment schedules similar to I2O are not unusual. If you add all this up, 2 years after contracts are signed before WIND sees any royalty $$$s is not unusual. It should be noted that WIND derives revenue from seats and support along the way. Also, it wouldn't surprise me that WIND has tailored financial payment schedules based on such things as whether an umbrella agreement has been established with a particular corporation or not. As a matter of fact, this is a point that Allen Benn actually eluded to in discussions about the cost of switching RTOSs. When a particular corporate culture values autonomy among its divisions (referred to as the "Silo" effect), some companies negotiate with WIND on a product-by-product basis rather than establish some type of corporate-wide preferred vendor agreement. Lag time aside - the fact that systems development have been squeezed are market driven, meaning that time-to-market is a central benefit that a COTS RTOS customer derives from the relationship. WIND's emphasis on the extensive customer support underscores WIND's recognition of the key role that time-to-market plays in their business. Speaking of which - MSFT tends to use time-to-market as a competitive postering tool rather than to help customers. Among a plethora of examples cited on this thread and elsewhere, the delay for I2O support within OSM is a typical MSFT ploy to screw their so-called partners. The type of customer support required in this industry is the antithesis of MSFT's business model. Cheers, Ronald Paul