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Technology Stocks : PSFT - Fiscal 1998 - Discussion for the next year -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Trader Dave who wrote (3394)	10/31/1998 7:36:00 PM
From: Melissa McAuliffe	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4509

TD, Much of what you're saying makes sense. However, I'd like to make a few comments assuming, of course, Shege doesn't have a problem. <<Regarding duffield, he had to leave integral systems to start psft so he could build a client server product with a clean slate.>> Not exactly true. He was a visionary in a non-visionary company. Integral Systems refused to fund a project to develop client server products....thus he left the company and founded PSFT. If not for that this would probably be the Integral Systems thread. <<I don't think there are any enterprise software companies that have successfully migrated from one generation to another primarily because of the costs of maintaining the installed base.>> I can't think of any either. But the only significant technology change that I'm aware of was the shift from the legacy systems to client server. That was truly a revolution unlike anything the apps software industry had ever seen before or since. I have to think there was a lesson to be learned from that and I can't help but believe that PSFT knows how easily the next generation of technology can create a space for the next PSFT if they don't stay ahead of the curve. Again, this is just my opinion but it's somewhat difficult to believe that PSFT isn't aware of it. The one vendor that should have been able to do it was DBS from sheer size and resources alone. Unfortunately they weren't just focusing on keeping their customers happy and it wasn't an issue of the costs to maintain the current customer base. They were caught up in a merger of two competing product lines, cultures and customer bases at a time when they should have been focusing on bringing new products to market in the client server environment. And when they finally got something remotely resembling client server it was just too little too late. Anyway, that's my two cents, fwiw.