I know more than I did but I didn't phrase my first question properly.

Was: What does it mean when more than 50% of the company's assets are
in "Goodwill"?

Should have been:
It's been five years after the acquision where people were discussing
the value of intangible goodwill. I would think that something less
than 50% would now be defined as an intangible. It's hard to believe
"most" of a company can be in the undefined goodwill bucket. I would
maintain that if they considered things like customer satisfaction,
loyalty of the reseller base, popularity in the community, etc, that
they indeed had a great value of this sort of goodwill back in 2000,
but absolutely not now.

Now I see my second question unwittingly actually answered the first
as it was answered by others. The people there are (or should be)
considered part of the intangible goodwill assets. One could also
conclude that the database software has no asset value of its own, but
that the potential of the software for future earnings, combined with
the people who can realize that potential, is probably what makes up a
great part of the valuation.

I'm sure if I did my homework I'd find goodwill was a significant part
of other companies. I'm pretty sure I'd even find many of these
companies have over half of their assets in goodwill. I guess that's
just part of the game.

T

Hey, that sounds awfully like "I've got a secret, and I won't tell you what
it is" My 9-year old would be told not to do that to his friends!

Chandru

"Tony Gravagno" <g6q3x9lu53001 (AT) sneakemail (DOT) com.invalid> wrote