To: NJR who wrote (815 ) 8/7/1998 12:05:00 PM From: mudweasel Respond to
njr- go read the posts. before this all degenerated into a debate over each other's stupidity and morality, there was a lot of information posted on this thread. you wanna know where i get ideas? i follow some of these stocks for a living. when you ask around an industry and everyone but one guy seems to think that guy is a joke, you get interested. then you ask source media to lay out their vision for you. you check it with their customers or potential customers and other industry insiders. i have found this to be much more rigorous than investing on the advice of bucket shops and the opinion of one set of management no matter how charismatic or optomistic. gyab? gmafb. i saw this product demoed yesterday. it didn't look so hot. internet was clunky, frames didn't fit well, selection numbers often were not readable as they appeared half off the edge of the screen. also, the demo was (by necessity) canned and did not show the actual product in operation as it would sit in a cable system. so we got no data there. of interest was the "program guide" heading on the front page of the insight mock-up. the interactive channel, as i have said before, cannot interoperate with the prevue channel in a digital environment. the pc requires too much bandwidth. the company was short on details as to just what system might be placed there. john reed was caught in multiple statements regarding lawsuits, compatibility, and financial condition that were at best highly misleading and perhaps lies. he confessed that the cffo from the it biz doesn't cover the debt service, that the interactive channel is driving large losses, and failed to remind us that a sizable portion of cash is actually tied up as part of the debt covenants. likely available cash will be about 11 million after the q is announced, and more will already have been burned by that time. ability to raise money would seem tantamount, but no mention of the s-3 nor any other plans was made at lunch. basically a promotional dog and pony show that ended with mr. reed beseiged by questions he didn't want to answer and for the most part artfully dodged. finally, mr reed said, and i quote, "there have been no formal offers to purchase the company brought before the board." this was a nice little hedge as it leaves open the door for speculation about "informal offers" but at this point, i'll beleive it when i see it.
