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Technology Stocks : Identix (IDNX) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sheldon C. who wrote (12559)	2/25/1999 1:33:00 PM
From: Hockeyfan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 26039

So exactly how much money does this bring to NRID? If zero, then why the heck do you need to post this information on our thread? Most of us read your thread anyways.

To: Sheldon C. who wrote (12559)	2/25/1999 2:06:00 PM
From: David	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 26039

Polaroid/NRID . . . . Well, Sheldon, I don't object to your posting this information, given the posts that we have done on the NRID threads over time. Besides, it is relevant information for IDX investors. I think there are a few different ways to examine this news. First, it is simply another alliance announcement without any sales. In fact, I'm not even sure that Polaroid is at a production stage, so I am still skeptical over any pricing statements -- a la the Who? saga I laid out recently. It also seems as if PRD is gathering together other people's technology and cobbling them into a proposed product. Polaroid as a competitor is not as scary as it first appears, since Polaroid as a company seems to be in deep trouble, with its good name as its only major asset. If you want to see some beaten down investors, just try reading the PRD threads. Their only hope is for a buyout. Nonetheless, it is worth asking why Polaroid -- or anybody -- chooses to be HAAPI compliant when true heavyweights like Compaq and Microsoft are involved in a competing API. I think it comes down to NRID's initial strategy for continuing in business: Get to the marketplace first with an API that works, and it will have to attract takers. As it turns out, to get there first, NRID came in with an API that doesn't try to do very much. Consequently, it wasn't all that attractive to the more long-term players in the market. However, it is attractive to the upstarts and the more desperate hardware makers (I include Polaroid in this group on both counts). They need a quick start to compete. So far, hardware providers using NRID software haven't had success selling. Even if they do sell product, I think they eventually get blown out of the water by the Compaqs and Novells. But no matter what the sequence of events, overall NRID's continuing push of a competing API (or, to be generous to NRID, the BioAPI's continuing push of a competing API) is bad for the development of this industry. It delays the creation of a unifying technology -- more so, if NRID partners can sell anything. From NRID's point of view, this isn't their problem. Unless they hold out for a HAAPI standard, it's hard to know how they get any advantage in this marketplace against much bigger, much better positioned competitors. So I am a bit pessimistic over this latest news. Not because Polaroid is scary, but because the industry is splitting into two camps -- the HAAPI wannabes, and the BioAPI haves. I think BioAPI wins, but I would like the win sooner rather than later. One more point to consider: IBM is contributing some core ID technology to the Polaroid product. Yet PRD is using HAAPI, even though IBM is a core founder of BioAPI. Does that tell us anything about IBM in the biometric marketplace?