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Non-Tech : Ashton Technology (ASTN) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mst2000 who wrote (1439)	5/30/1999 2:34:00 PM
From: Keith A Walker	Respond to of 4443

As usual MST: your message to Max was a great response and actually summarizes the history of Ashton beautifully. Two items which would be very interesting to get more information about would be EPLOB and NextExchange - can you provide any insight about the progress the company is making toward bringing these concepts to reality? I also agree with your assessment that the timing for Ashton and us (the long-term shareholders) has never been better. Best regards, Keith

To: mst2000 who wrote (1439)	5/30/1999 4:44:00 PM
From: Zeev Hed	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4443

MST, one possible down side that we never got to fully elucidate one way or another is "barriers to competitive entry". Typically, when a business model yields money printing press like yields, competitors try to get in on the gravy train. In many situations, intellectual property rights serve as barriers. In other cases, brand and market dominance serve as barriers, and in other cases massive investments required serve as such barrier. In this case, it seems that the barriers erected , if any are not particularly "formidable", and while being the first counts for something, as I mentioned before, "pioneers often end up with arrows in their back". After this lengthy preamble, can you comment on what you might know of the strategic steps being taken to assure long term survivability of ASTN unique system? TIA Zeev