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Technology Stocks : Wind River going up, up, up! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bargain Hunter who wrote (5374)	6/4/1999 12:31:00 PM
From: Ronald Paul	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 10309

It is gratifying that WIND has finally recognized that they need to change their pricing structure in order to effectively compete. There is concern that WIND's move is too late. Market may be reacting to the reduced margins that this move portends, but the longer term concerns revolve around the gads of already-lost business, not to mention critical momentum lost that WIND needs in order to compete in the internet appliance space. A significant body of WIND customers have been saying for years that WIND's pricing structure will eventually be their undoing if they don't adapt to the rapidly changing demands that this market places on WIND customers. WIND has gained a reputation as being a bullying partner with customers that needed more flexibility in order to enable the viability of their products. In some cases, the customers have gone with other vendors or rolled their own whenever this was feasible. In others cases, switching from VxWorks to another caused insurmountable time-to-market issues, cancelling the product. WIND has lost real business because of their hard ball tactics and inflexible pricing structure. Abelman was known as a key stumbling block to these needed changes. Hopefully, Fiddler is not too late with this midcourse correction. I had posted some of these concerns on this thread about 1 - 1 1/2 years ago. Allen Benn graciously responded, but this topic did not get prime-time attention. It would be great to get Allen Benn's perspective with such a fundamental business-model change finally coming from WIND.