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Technology Stocks : Osicom(FIBR) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jatin Kadakia who wrote (7239)	6/9/1998 6:04:00 PM
From: Ploni	Respond to of 10479

Did you notice that FIBR had 1677 employees (full time and consultants) on Jan 31, 1998? Is it just me who thinks that its extremely high for 112 MM in annual revenues? Just wonder what all these folks are producing..Are their products so labor intensive? This inefficiency was pointed out many months ago by Sankar Acharya. I don't remember if he ever had a position in Osicom, or was only thinking about it. The company has a large number of product lines, which have very low margins. The existing businesses are very boring and not worth much; rather, investors who have bought recently have been motivated by the hope (hype?) of the company's high-margin products, which were in the development stage, and which will hopefully be a great success in the real-world. The company could divest many of these low-margin product lines and be able to significantly cut their workforce. However, this would bring a huge cut in revenues to the company, which would look bad (it already looks bad that revenues are dropping). Also, this might result in write-offs, which would look bad. Furthermore, the company is hoping to sell some of its high-margin products to the purchasers of its low-margin products, through existing relationships and familiarity with the company name.

To: Jatin Kadakia who wrote (7239)	6/9/1998 10:29:00 PM
From: CH	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10479

Jatin, In the long list of Osicom's problems, the number of headcount probably is the least important one, in my opinion. In China, a headcount (full time employee) can only cost you less than $1,000 a year (NOT a month), so they are not the reason to cost us the loss of $2 million a quarter. How many Chinese employees in Osicom's factory? 1,500? CH

To: Jatin Kadakia who wrote (7239)	6/9/1998 11:52:00 PM
From: David Wise	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10479

The issue of revenue per employee is one I'd like to raise at the meeting, if I make it. Seems like they acquired all these companies for synergies, but have done nothing to consolidate operations and save money. This is one issue I'll give Craig credit for bringing to my attention months ago. He must have heard it somewhere else. But I wonder if the low revenue to employee ratio is due to the fact that Osicom deals in low end markets. They always try to be the lowest price, which is not smart if you have good equipment and good service to back up your products, as I've heard often that they do. More likely is that Par doesn't know how to consolidate the various groups. Looks like a very good way to get the bottom line up. Those who can, please forward this issue repeatedly to the company.