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Technology Stocks : Applix is back in action -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Scott Bergquist who wrote (2610)	3/4/1999 6:59:00 AM
From: nanocap	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3014

Scott, Thanks for the update. Did the Applix representatives comment on business trends/prospects?

To: Scott Bergquist who wrote (2610)	3/4/1999 8:08:00 AM
From: BostonView	Respond to of 3014

Thank you, Scott, for the recap. You've confirmed my suspicion that Applix, the company, is not quite ready to called a marketing machine. Maybe they've lived in obscurity for too long and don't recognize the value of spending the bucks to create demand??? The dawn of Linux may present them with another chance of finding the limelight. Let's hope they "get it" at the executive level... BV

To: Scott Bergquist who wrote (2610)	3/4/1999 11:57:00 AM
From: umbro	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 3014

Scott, I visited Linux World yesterday also, and have a less positive view of Applix's "presence". I was there with several associates, and we were looking primarily at other Linux offerings, however, since I'm an Applix shareholder, I did want to check out the Applix booth. As we were leaving the convention, I asked my buddy if he'd seen the Applix booth? He said at first he hadn't (and by the way, I missed it also). Then he remembered, that he thought maybe Applix was being shown as part of Computer Associates display. Well, we cruised a little, and admittedly, we were in a hurry to leave ... we found the Applix presence unimpressive enough that we didn't bother stopping there. This is just a sample of one, admittedly, but I was a little disappointed that Applix didn't make a stronger showing. On the issue of hardware vendors, like Compaq (remebmer, that Compaq acquired Digital, so the featured product was Linux running on a 500Mhz Alpha chip in a server configuration), Sun, etc. ... at least in the case of Sun, when I asked them what the had to show: the sales rep. asked me if I was interested in Linux only, and I said "well, yes, that's why I am here." He said "well we don't have anything for Linux, yet." It seems that some vendors were there, just trolling because of the obvious concentration of techies and managers in the crowd, and for a Silicon Valley based company, this is a relatively inexpensive show. On Computer Associates, the bright yellow bags looked to me to be generic (no big penguin on the side), and were probably left over from Comdex or some other big show. Given the mix of techies at Linux World, and the general idea of freeware, I don't think that downplaying the show was necessarily a big loss for Applix, except for its shareholders and supporters. I think for Applix to "make it", and survive in the face of, for example, Microsoft moving its Office suite to Unix/Linux, Applix will have to concentrate on deployment through value added applications developrs like Computer Associates. They need to find their own "kller app", and need to get consulting organizations to help deploy their technology, in my opinion. In that respect, their recent news release about the "open source initiative" may be going in the right direction: biz.yahoo.com (btw, from a techie point of view, choosing the name "ELF" for their Extension Language Facility is a bit unfortunate, and confusing. ELF is the name of the object file format used on Linux and many other Unix variants.)