Here is a recent post from Yahoo by John Anderson
Definitely a good read.
Also, the so called inside selling has already been discussed ad nauseum. Anyone interested in this already dead topic can peruse the last 3000 posts at Yahoo as well.
Conversation With Company Officials...
Jul 8 1998
3:42PM EDT
I just got off the phone from talking first with Jennifer Schreier, head of Investor Relations, and then Patrick Gilbert, WavePhore's Senior Vice President of Business Development and Chief Technical Officer. Jennifer "handed me off" to Patrick because she had a little difficulty answering my many detailed technical questions.
First of all, these conversations were very reassurring to me and affirmed my belief in the potential of WaveTop and WavePhore. Since these discussions were very intense it will probably require several posts here to completely share with WAVO posters all the very interesting things I learned. But don't go short the stock!
First, Jennifer told me that while they were not releasing the number of "subscriptions" WaveTop has gotten, they were very encouraged with the increased pace of sign-ups since the release of Windows 98. I also heard this from Patrick Gilbert. Both their tone of voice and inflection made me to believe they genuinely are pleased and excited. Jennifer said they were very comfortable with analyst's projections of earnings for the second quarter -- these projections have always been for a loss, but what their statements meant to me was that
we shouldn't expect any unpleasant surprises.
Patrick Gilbert is a WavePhore Senior Vice President, head of business Development and Chief Technical Officer. It was refreshing to talk to an enthusiastic and obviously extremely knowledgeable representative about WaveTop technology. And I had LOTS of questions!!
First, we have discussed here many times the possibility that Microsoft's WebTV could be enabled with WaveTop content. I have always said that I believed there was no technical reason that
couldn't happen. Patrick affirmed that. However, WebTV in
its current form uses a proprietary systems, NOT Windows CE.
Patrick led me to believe it is likely future versions of WebTV
WILL use Windows CE and that the company has had discussions
"with many parties" that make set-top boxes about incorporating
WaveTop as a feature.
I pointed out that many members of this Board have noted that
WebTV has about 400,000 subscribers that could be virtually
instant "subscribers" to WaveTop content. Patrick agreed that
was possible, they are very aware of that, but other than to
reassure me that there are no substantial technical impediments
to that alliance, he could not and would not comment further.
WavePhore has obviously got to make that deal with Microsoft....
I asked Patrick this question -- "If I were a set-top box
manufacturer and I wanted to incorporate WaveTop as an additional
selling feature of my product, would it not be very easy to
accomplish that?" The answer was an emphatic, "Yes! And we
are talking with several manufacturers of set-top boxes. They
already have the TV tuner, the processor and the hard drive
needed to download and cache WaveTop content."
I then asked Patrick's thoughts on several recurring objections
that potential investors and WaveTop users have to using the
service.
First, they don't like leaving their computers on all the time.
Patrick was amused by this, pointing out that increasingly
computers are coming with answering machine and fax-receiving
software, requiring continual "ON" status to be useful. He
feels this issue is mostly a matter of consumer education,
noting that the weakest link in most computers, and even more so
as their price declines and manufacturers look for ways to save
money on component costs, is the power supply. And the WORST
thing you can do to any power supply is to turn it OFF and ON.
Further, as computers become more integrated into our daily lives
they will increasingly be enabled with software and devices
that control household functions. One has to believe the present
objection to leaving one's computer on all day will be looked
back on in the near future with great amusement.
The second objection, often voiced here, is that users fear
WaveTop will degrade the speed of their processors while it is
downloading content to the hard drive, and the user has other
applications open. This REALLY amused Patrick. He said that
the amount of "precessing power" used by WaveTop of any
modern Pentium processor was about 2% of its capacity. To
illustrate his point, he said that if a user opens Windows 95/98
Explorer and then runs programs, Explorer itself alone drains
from 5% to 30% of the processor's power. He concluded that if
anyone could notice the difference when WaveTop is running,
they are INDEED sensitive -- most users will never notice ANY
difference. He was incredulous that anyone would actually claim
they could tell a difference....
Here's a few notes I scribbled of various subjects addressed
by Patrick Gilbert:
The upcoming Microsoft "Service Update" (or whatever they call
that) to Windows 98 will include the drivers for several TV
tuners. Therefore when a user has the update and wishes to
install a TV tuner, he has in Windows 98 ALL the software he
needs, including WaveTop, not just drivers for the ATI card.
The drivers for the Hauppaugue TV tuner are available for
download NOW. And the WaveTop software is now packaged with
virtually every TV tuner available to the public.
I'm not sure I can decipher my notes here, but in the context
of talking about people making set-top boxes, Patrick mentioned
Compaq and ATI....
I engaged Patrick in talking about the suddenly-popular notion
of the caching by ISP of Web pages -- the Skycache collaboration
WavePhore has. Mr. Gilbert explained that this was an increasing
focus of ISP's because, while we all THINK we look at very
different stuff on the Web, the truth is about 80% of the
content people view the most is the same. Using WavePhore's
Networks equipment (through purchase or lease) ISP's and others
are able to store this content as "cache" and therefore it
doesn't tax their network's capacity to deliver it. A big
and growing market and a very big plus for WAVO's Networks
division!
I mentioned that in an earlier conversation with Glenn Williamson
he had puzzled me by mentioning that they were working on
increased speed. I asked what that meant. Patrick started out
by reminding me that the speed the WaveTop user experiences is
always the same -- and determined by the limits of the speed
of his computer and hard drive. However, he mentioned some
very interesting things in explaining what Glenn was talking
about.
Patrick said they are working on improvements to WaveTop
including a revision of the software. In explaining the
increased speed they are seeking he focused my attention on
the need to deliver increasing amounts of content -- again
NOT the speed the user experiences, because that will always
be instantaneous. However, as more subscribers and advertisers
want to include more content, particularly multimedia
"streaming" content with video and sound, it is important to
be able to transmit that quickly. He mentioned "live" content
which blew my mind. I asked him if that meant that, "To use
an example off the top of my head, if Clinton were scheduled
to have a press conference on Friday at 11:00 AM, and my WaveTop
screen alerted me to the fact I could view that live, is that
possible?" The answer was a very confident, "Yes!" WOW!
I got the impression that they are intent on making the viewing
of WaveTop content a multi-media tour de force -- with sound,
streaming video, all the bells and whistles....
Our conversation touched on topics like the possibility future
TV sets will have hard drives and be WaveTop enabled. Patrick
told me about a prototype built by Sharp that had all that and
more. That is not something he predicts will happen, but it
was part of our wide-ranging conversation about the future of
WaveTop and WavePhore's technology as TV broadcast becomes
entirely digital. Patrick was clear to point out that WaveTop
in PC's is where they chose to START this revolution, but that
it can be extended to set-top boxes and it really gets
interesting when one envisions an all-digital broadcast environment.
Some of you have seen me speculate here about the possibility
that WaveTop could, in the future, be the mechanism of delivering
subscription content. I shared with Pat my notion of how nice
it would be to come down in the morning and find the entire
Wall Street Journal downloaded to my hard drive -- that I
would certainly be willing to pay a subscription for that service. Patrick said that "the hooks" to accomplish that are already built into the system, and there is absolutely no reason why that could not be done. However, he was quick to point out WavePhore had NO intention of first offering a FREE service, and then suddenly telling people, "Okay, this will now cost you $4.00 a month." Their plans do NOT include changing the business model at this point, but as the critical mass of users and WaveTop popularity as a means of getting
content is affirmed, it is very possible subscription services could be offered as an option over and beyond the free content. Patrick pointed out that WavePhore's Newscast division already offers and transmits the Wall Street Journal, and that, of course, WaveTop also has the free WSJ "headline stories" content.
I asked Mr. Gilbert to tell me anything he was allowed to
divulge that might be of interest, but not covered by my
questions. He said that everything he had told me had been
discussed publicly in various forums, but then took the time to
pesonally express his pride and satisfaction about the current
state of WaveTop. He emphasized that their technology was in
its infancy, but that he was very pleased and proud about not
only their technological progress, but the company's future
which he feels is very bright.
Patrick Gilbert is an articulate, no bullshit WavePhore spokes-
man. He handles the technical questions AND the visionary
questions about the future of this technology with obvious
pleasure and unhesitating competence. This guys KNOWS his
technology and where he's headed with it. I wish all the
participants on this Board had eavesdropped on our conversation -
you would have been VERY impressed and reassurred. This is
a speculative stock, yes, but who else has this technology,
this inclusion in Windows 98, these affiliations with PBS,
Skycache -- the Networks and Newcast divisions? Stay the
course, folks, we bought this speculation for GOOD reasons!!
.............................................................
Is this guy good or what? Thanks John!
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