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To: Probity who wrote (9206)	12/19/1998 6:50:00 PM
From: TEDennis	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 10786

I'll provide my opinion of the posts on this board whenever I please. In my opinion, your request to have Jeff publicly critique another person is out of line. If he voluntarily provided it, that's fine. If you asked Jeff's opinion of ALYD as a company, their products, or the business prospects, then that's fine with me. That would be deemed more "socially acceptable" and wouldn't be putting Jeff on the spot. You see it one way, I see it another. As you said ... "get a grip". TED

To: Probity who wrote (9206)	12/21/1998 12:48:00 AM
From: Jeffrey S. Mitchell	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10786

I think everyone is overthinking the problem here. It's really pretty simple: ALYD and other similar companies were originally founded on the premise that gobs of money would be thrown to companies that specialized in remedying the millennium bug. Perhaps they were spurred by the Gartner Group's $600B estimate; perhaps they just thought it "common sense". Well, so far, the proverbial floodgates just haven't opened. So, what it really boils down to is whether all those rosy predictions Y2K companies had for revenues for '98 were made in good faith using available data and prevailing industry sentiment, or whether they all conspired to fool us investors. I choose to believe all of us -- Y2K companies and investors -- have just been flat out wrong, at least so far. Personally, I realized at the start of summer that most Y2K strategies had been set and thus it would be quite some time before companies got around to assessing their progress. Unfortunately, I don't have much confidence that companies are either organized enough to know they are behind schedule nor savvy enough to have developed a comprehensive series of Y2K simulation tests. I think, again unfortunately, it will take some sort of Y2K related disaster before companies finally start crying uncle. So, given that scenario, I figured there was little Y2K companies like ALYD could say or do to make anything more than a temporary surge in their stock prices. In other words, the struggle over the past half year has been to maintain shareholder value, let alone increase it. Yes, ALYD has already proven the benefits of the factory approach. Yes, they have already proven they can land the big fish. And yes, they have already proven they can make a consistent profit. But, sorry, "the best laid schemes of mice and men oft times go astray". I still firmly believe that ALYD stands to be the big winner when panic sets in and companies need to get their code fixed swiftly and accurately. While I don't think the amount of code that flows will be anywhere near what we once anticipated, I do think the accompanying publicity given to Y2K, at that point less than a year away, will breathe new life into the Y2K sector as, once again, perception will supersede reality. To end with a football analogy, about the best you can ask of a coach is to get you in a position to be able to win the big one. In my opinion, Bob Gruder has ALYD in position to mop up in Y2K if -- and only if -- given the chance. As I doubt this late in the season potential ALYD clients will give a tinker's damn about Bob's personality when contemplating whether or not to hire them, I see little point in focusing so much on it here. - Jeff