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Technology Stocks : TAVA Technologies (TAVA-NASDAQ) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mark L. who wrote (29295)	3/6/1999 10:03:00 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Respond to of 31646

Mark, I agree with your analysis about TAVA earnings through the rest of this year. I would be surprised if we see disappointments as we saw last year. However, I think you may be underestimating the company's ability to convert some of this temporary Y2K work to core business applications post Y2K. Many small companies require years to develop the marketing and business connections that Y2K work has provided to TAVA. And I believe JJ is quite correct that there is considerable work to do in connecting the ERP segment to the real-time process layer in order to bring manufacturing processes into an more efficient model. I haven't taken my eye off the ball on the post-y2k opportunities for TAVA. And there aren't many small cap companies catching the attention of their clients CEO/CIO/COOs when they do system integration work. But due to the executive responsibilities and interest in Y2K, TAVA looks to be building up some valuable "face time" with the people who make the large financial decisions. That is why I'm REALLY hopeful about TAVA. The are not a Y2K company persay, but a company that looks to be converting the opportunity that Y2K has presented into far more long-term and potentially more lucrative relationships that will grow earnings for some time to come. That is why I believe that Bill Wexler is really missing the boat in properly analyzing TAVA. Y2K is the facilitator that expedites their progression into the higher margin system integration layer. Regards, Ron

To: Mark L. who wrote (29295)	3/7/1999 4:52:00 AM
From: JDN	Respond to of 31646

Dear Mark L. You present a good detailed set of "What ifs" to support your investment decision and I respect that. Here are some other "what ifs" that might throw a monkey wrench into your plans. What If: 1. the y2k business doesnt just "drop dead" on 12/31/99 but instead tails off slowly as TAVA switches from doing the ABSOLUTELY necessary to the complete remediation work. 2. As the y2k work tails off they gradually increase the new CORE business to offsett 3. A new line of the Core business such as UTILITIES, AIRPORTS, CONSULTING becomes even HOTTER than the Y2K work was? 4. As the "New Millenium" begins the Corporate World decides that it is now necessary to have the latest technology from the plant floor to the front office to operate as efficiently as possible to continue to have profit growth in a depressed commodity scenario. AND, some large company looks around and sees TAVA with maybe 900 to 1,000 qualified engineers, a gold plated client list, and a National if not Global footprint and decides HEY lets BUY THEM? 5. Finally, WHAT IF core business "ONLY" grows 50% ANNUALLY and company even loses money first year. What is a 50% annual growth company worth? The bottom line is that you either have faith in management to have a plan and to be executing on that plan or you dont. In the two years I have followed JJ I have never been able to fault a single thing he has done OPERATIONALLY, and by the way, in most of my Career it was my job TO FIND FAULT. If JJ is hiring up to 1,000 people BY GOD I KNOW he will use them PROFITABLY. Those are my WHAT IFS and CONCLUSION. JDN

To: Mark L. who wrote (29295)	3/7/1999 12:57:00 PM
From: threadneedler	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 31646

TAVA assessment: Mark: I agree with most of your TAVA assumptions and have traded in a similar pattern to yours. There are a couple of possibilities you've overlooked, however. Before I deal with those, let me say that Red Chip further exposed TAVA for what it currently is...a Y2k company struggling for a post-Y2k identity. Very disquieting not to hear transition specifics. On the potential plus side: TAVA has gained a foothold into four areas that could be quite lucrative going forward. (1) Foreign Y2k remediation, which is badly trailing the U.S.and could feed the TAVA bottom line for an additional 4-6 quarters. (2) Utilities (3) Airports (4) Medical. As for the expense drag of 700+ employees. I don't quite understand that point. If all the current employees remain, that means that they're necessary to the continued operation of the company and would only be justified if the work was there for them to perform. Besides, aren't some of these folks contract players? Of those remaining who are deemed unnecessary, wouldn't they be jettisoned to a one time charge? One final point. Humble, little TAVA seems to garner the attention and respect of the creme de la creme of the corporate and academic worlds...ie General Motors, Chevron, MIT et al. These people seem to see something in this company and its management, that is perhaps escaping us and the Street. That's why I keep a percentage of my TAVA $$$ in the long term bucket.

To: Mark L. who wrote (29295)	3/7/1999 2:02:00 PM
From: Jack Bridges	Respond to of 31646

Yours is undoubtedly one of the most penetrating evaluations of TAVA's future to ever have appeared. Thank you. Your key view is that TAVA "does not look to me like a dollar-producing engine." Here is another point of view. For several months last year, the company seemed poised to launch a series of acquisitions via stock swaps and cash. This presumed that a major surge in cash flow would sustain a favorable stock valuation. The objective would be to broaden the base of services and products dramatically, thus leveraging post-Y2K earnings. It was not to be. The cash flow was too little and too late versus the collapse of the small cap market. While top managements of business and government were slow to face up to Y2K, the realities of liability and politics did the trick and, at the same time, opened a lot of eyes to a whole new area of potential productivity improvement. TAVA entered the arena as a minor solver of arcane engineering problems. It has been transformed into a creative software company with enormous new business contacts and opportunities. I cannot think of another small company that has built such a solid and diverse franchise in such record time. If the depth and breadth of the organization, its partnerships and its customers do not constitute a "dollar-producing engine", I don't know what could. The value of the franchise is growing by leaps and bounds making TAVA a sure fire candidate for acquistion by any number of big names. This value seems on course to double or quadruple in 12 to 24 months, and someone may well jump the gun. I would not want to be short a stock that is subject to such clear risk of takeover, instead preferring to hold another year or more as the game plays out. Jack Bridges

To: Mark L. who wrote (29295)	3/8/1999 12:07:00 PM
From: Karl Drobnic	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 31646

The Mark L. Analysis: TAVA's share price indicates that his analysis prevails on Wall St. It is a "show me the money" stance, requiring TAVA to prove that it is more than a Y2K company. 1. Industrial trends: US industry is consolidating. Industrial sectors are converging on a few major players. There are fewer local and regional companies, more national and super-national companies. Support services must follow this trend. This underlies the CEO's vision. Jenkins correctly began his tenure at TAVA implementing a vision of "a national company with a local presence". Step outside SI work. Look at electronic contract manufacturing. If you want to succeed in this arena, you have to locate your factory near your client. Your client may have a dozen locations spread across the US in order to distribute product efficiently. You've got to locate near your client's local factories, but be able to coordinate on a national scale - "national company, local presence". That's not just the TAVA vision. It is a powerful trend in motion. As industrial sectors consolidate, the mom and pop SI companies can no longer compete. They become available to TAVA on favorable terms because a trend has made the local franchise less valuable. The locals may be reduced to such price slashing that they make the fatal mistake - they don't deliver, and the contract penalties kick in, driving them into insolvency. TAVA is likely to have its pick of favorable small acquisitions if it wants to continue "growth by small acquisitions". 2. The view of TAVA as a Y2K company discounts the value of TAVA as a database company. The database has grown from 4,000 items to well over 100,000 unique items. Chuck out 20% of these as date-reliant items. There are still over 80,000 useful items in the database, and it is proprietary. TAVA has already announced that it is finding new uses for its database. Will it find a single use that is as lucrative as Y2K? Probably not. But will it find multiple uses that add up to Y2K levels. I think so. With Y2K, a client uses the TAVA database for one purpose - discover the date-reliant chips. But there is no reason TAVA cannot develop uses for the database that brings a single client back for multiple uses. Again, step outside SI for perspective. Think about the massive USPS "change-of-address" database. Direct mail companies come back to that database year after year (paying fees) for NCOA cleaning of their lists. It is TAVA's job to find uses for their unique database beyond Y2K, and I think they will. Were I JJ, I certainly would, and so would legions of others. To discount the TAVA database is either to not understand it, or to discount JJ's ability to assign a productive R&D team to the database. 3. Utility deregulation. What's bigger than Y2K, already in motion, and will be around a lot longer than Y2K? Utility deregulation. During the last recession (1990), one of the few industries that went full tilt boogie right through the recession was telecommunications. And it is still booming. Utility deregulation will be on the scale of telecommunications deregulation with this difference for TAVA shareholders. TAVA is in on the ground floor. If you want to know what TAVA will be doing after Y2K is a distant memory, spend some time reading up on the power industry, and the coming changes. 4. Will TAVA be a dollar producing engine? JJ's record says "yes". During the first round of acquisitions (before Plant Y2K hit), he laid out a plan (I heard him do it) to make TAVA profitable. He gave me a date when TAVA would go profitable. He hit the date right on. Then the Y2K opportunity arose. He seized it, and had to spend money to make money. Pre-Y2K, he showed himself to be fiscally tough. When Y2K hit, he showed himself to be fiscally smart. Again, the prevailing Wall St. view sells JJ way short. 5. Management. JJ has recruited a smart team. Give JJ credit for doing it, and give the team credit for making the most of the Y2K accelator. Assuming that JJ and the team will turn into pumpkins on 1/1/00 is a sceptical attitude that I do not share. I assume that they are skilled enough and bright enough to dedicate TAVA resources now to building TAVA's post Y2K future.