http://biz.yahoo.com/e/060630/rdta8-k.html

Comments?

It looks like the ghost of Dick Pick is still roaming the halls in Irving...
maybe settling over the CFO chair - still singing "promises, promises,
promises".

"Jeff Caspari" <FDFDFDFD (AT) sneakernet (DOT) com.invalid> wrote

Jeff Caspari wrote:
I am surprised that the allocation for "Goodwill"
was only $450K.

I am not surprised that somebody at RD has done
some creative accounting.

--
frosty

Jeff Caspari wrote:
I dunno. I just want to say it seems like a crap company with some
great products that the management don't appear to believe in.

"Jeff Caspari" wrote:
Try to avoid letting the good people over there getting a bad rap for
what happens at a higher level.

Without implying culpability or lack thereof there were personnel
changes over there which seems to coincide with the events described.
I don't know if this 8-k is a lead-in to fingering scapegoats or if
real errors were found which prompted the major changes.

Glad I sold my stock.

Wish they'd sell the DBMS business to people who had a clue rather
than slowly slaughtering the cash cow.

Rick Koe is a smart guy and undoubtedly rues the day he got involved
in all of this. For the first time I'm actually feeling a little
sorry for him.

T

Tony Gravagno wrote:
So are the higher level people not good? Want to name names? ;-) Sure
the head coach should perhaps take the blame for a loss, but the team
players are not immune IMO.

Laughing. Somehow I could not fit the second part of the sentence with
the first, Tony.

I wish they could, but then would their revenue come from TigerLogic or
Omni Studios or what? When you take dollars from one software product
and don't reinvest (m)any of them back into that product and don't
develop new products for the customer base from which you are getting
revenue, then I need a few more clues to figure out the business
strategy. No product reinvest + no customer reinvest = cooking the
books?

I don't know the RD folks, but it just doesn't seem like they have been
making good moves ever since I started watching them (~2002). Just my
2 cents. --dawn

"dawn" <dawnwolthuis (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:

Damn, it was just a comment, nothing implied. I wish these things
wouldn't get twisted so often, smileys or not. It always comes back
later as "you said...".

Management calls the shots for all companies. Yes, team players under
the C-levels are and should be completely immune to responsibility for
mistakes made by people above them. Guilt (of incompetence, simple
error, or malice) by association is something civilization has come to
frown upon. Over the years we've seen people in Support and other
departments (at RD and other companies) take grief for things they
have no idea about. I'm just saying an entire company of people
shouldn't be re-evaluated because of some management errors.


Makes perfect sense to me. I'm guessing you either didn't read the
report or you're inferring malice where an error was reported, which I
don't think is appropriate at all.


What I'm suggesting is that they sell the DBMS products to someone who
will focus on them, foster their growth, and market them to an
interested audience. Omnis Studio should also be sold to someone who
understands it - that doesn't include the MV market. TigerLogic is
dependent upon the D3 core in the same way DataStage relies on
Universe. The same relationship could be forged between the database
people and the company that owns TigerLogic and all of the other
non-DBMS products and relationships they've been building recently.

The problem they face is that they've already sunk a ton of money into
this whole thing and they can't take the heavy loss that would be
inevitable if they sold off the parts. Building TigerLogic so heavily
around the DBMS was a noble effort to show off the excellent potential
of the MV model for hosting an XML repository, but they haven't had
much success in marketing it. I think they were late to market but
there's still a chance they could pull that off, considering XML still
has that "new" feel to it in the market. Even so, if they did sell
off the D3 side they would feel too vulnerable without it, so I don't
think any of this will happen.


I don't know anyone who has a clue what the big picture looks like
over there but it seems evident that the DBMS doesn't occupy too many
pixels in that picture.


That's a bit of an extreme leap. It seems from their website that
they're reinventing the business toward something that they believe
will generate more revenue. They gotta do "something". It should be
no surprise with D3 people being as errrr, frugal as they are, that
their vendor can't continue to invest in a market that has no
intention of spending any money. So the vendor needs to invest what
they have elsewhere. I've had to change my business model too, for
pretty much the same reason.

All that said, they've put a lot into D3 v7.5. They could have made
it v8.0 but they pulled back a ton of changes into a point-release so
that the current customer base can get the benefit. That's
significant product and customer reinvestment. I'm curious to see how
their bid plays.


A lot of us ex-RDers would agree that they weren't making very good
moves for quite some time prior to that.

T

Tony, I'm sorry if I keep dragging you into a deeper discussion of selected
points but my motives are always for the greater good and we know each other
well enough.

What has RD done to invest in their DBMS market?

I say virtually nothing. They have done more to exploit it than any other
mv vendor. Further, they do not have any intention of doing more than the
bare minimum.

If they do not get TigerLogic to attract a buyer (for the company, not the
product) soon they will need to downsize, from lost DBMS business, and the
company will be less attractive resulting in a lower stock price. That is a
downward spiral.

QM will be the beneficiary, and well-deserved. Martin should be ready to
accept a lot of migrations.

Big message to Martin:
Actually, if Martin made a QM port that was really seamless from D3 it would
put a quick end to all this nonsense. Timing is right for this.

Jeff

Hi Jeff,

Not sure about 100% seamless but you might be surprised at how simple
migration from D3->openQM has become via compatibility settings. IMHO
the tiny bit of manual conversion is more than offset by the many
modern features and ability to interface to other systems offered.

I would be happy to help anyone wishing to migrate get over any little
bumps that they encounter.
-Tom <tomd at blackflute.com>

Jeff Caspari wrote:
Migration will never be a totally painless process but we believe that,
with a few option settings, it's really not that difficult. If you know
otherwise, please point us at the problem area(s).


Martin Phillips, Ladybridge Systems.