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Technology Stocks : METRICOM - Wireless Data Communications -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: EEL who wrote (1009)	4/20/1999 3:44:00 PM
From: Tom Scozzafava	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3376

EEL, that stuff is really old news. We all know that Vulcan and Allen are knee-deep in the stock and may purchase additional shares from "time to time." On Wall Street, Allen has lost much of his luster. He's had more losers than winners. (It is just that he was lucky enough to have teamed with Gates and now his first and biggest holding is a huge winner.) Essentially, he has poured a ton of money down the drain since leaving MSFT. Many of his investments seem to be made at the 30,000 foot level. Except for owning trophy properties (such as sports franchises), he likes to invest in big picture ideas that make sense from afar and in paradigm-shifting stuff. Example: "Wireless Internet access. Now that makes sense. Let's buy it . . ." Many of these ideas fail as a result of the pragmatic, like a technology made obsolete or the impracticality of the deployment methodology (sound familiar?). Or a flaw in the business plan and/or execution of it. MCOM is a great example of this. Point: (1) The fact he's all over this investment means nothing to smart money; (2) even if he does buy the remaining outstanding shares of MCOM (why would he, as he already has control?), he's not going to pay a huge premium to his current cost basis, which I would guess is currently in the mid teens . . . especially if in 1994 he exercised warrants at $20 per share. So if he does buy the thing outright, my guess is that it would be in the low-to-mid teens. And again, he already has control of the company. What would taking it private do for him or the company? Finally. EEL, take a long, hard look at you keyboard. Find the "Caps Lock" button and please push it.