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To: Rick Rappaport who wrote (5564)	3/11/1999 5:12:00 PM
From: Sea Otter	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 10081

Upon reflection, I was more bothered by that answer to the financing question than any other item. $15M burn, relative to their cash position - not promising. I suppose there are two paths. 1) A strategic equity investment by a partner. Obvious candidates come to mind. 2) Outright acquistion by a large carrier or sw firm. I would guess they wouldn't do another private convertible placement. At least, I hope not. Any others? If case #1, we get diluted, probably pretty massively. Upside, of course, is that we'd have legs to run, but the cost to the stock might be very high in the medium term.

To: Rick Rappaport who wrote (5564)	3/11/1999 5:28:00 PM
From: Mark Oliver	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 10081

Yes, the cash position sucks and at what price will it be fixed? I don't have an answer. I should think they must have companies that want their technology and unless there's another player ready to pick up GM's dropped ball, they'll have to bail GM out. Well, if they think GM is a sure thing (???), then they would be happy to buy a chunk at less than $4. Probably GM would want more, or so we hope. The available stock would give any company too much stake, so we'd hope they wouldn't sell it all. Say they sell 15 million shares for $5, that would fund 5 quarters if expenses remain static. Anyway, it would seem pretty dumb for the company to go down at this stage. Seems like WK is counting on this product, but can we count on WK? Microsoft has too many irons in the fire to count on them for anything. Intuit??? They would probably be a screaming success regardless of VUI. This only improves their service, and for that the service must be very good, and easily payable. So, Intuit won't save the day. Qwest? Everyone seems to think Qwest needs GM. Yeah well, I doubt it. Again, they can make money with this service, but it wouldn't break their business plan not to have it. So, they might buy shares if the price is right. Just their involvement will make their investment a good buy. Still, too much ownership from Qwest and other telcos will back off. But really, who needs a percentage of GM to make their plans work? No one. So, can they raise cash as easily as Dr. Markman would like us to think? And remember, he's not really talking to you, he's talking to potential partners like Intuit. I see no clear answer. I doubt they would be allowed to go bankrupt. Before that day, they should be bought. Any wise partner will not start a deal wih a company this close to the edge. I thought today was encouraging. It took a fast drop at the open and recovered and held for most of the day. That's not exactly the action you would expect from a company that's going bankrupt in 3 months. I sort of expected end of the day profit taking. So, I guess the market believes Markman will get his money and live to play another day. Maybe Papillion's call buyer is right. I certainly hope so. Regards, Mark