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From: doug@feedme.UUCP (Doug Salot)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.microport
Subject: Re: Microport Buyout ( was: Microport Status )
Message-ID: <319@feedme.UUCP>
Date: 8 Apr 89 07:08:15 GMT
References: <315@uport.UUCP> <96473@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> <6385@bsu-cs.UUCP> <96729@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> <310@feedme.UUCP> <292@visenix.UUCP> <237@egsner.UUCP>
Reply-To: doug@feedme.UUCP (Doug Salot)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Feedme Microsystems, Orange County, CA
Lines: 72

In article <237@egsner.UUCP> eric@egsner.UUCP (Eric Schnoebelen) writes:
[about buying out Microport]
>	Well, folks, I have been thinking about doing just such a thing.
>The only problem is that I have only the barest knowledge about how to
>do such a thing.

It's unlikely you'll get any interest from investors unless you've got
a damn near foolproof plan to make the new and improved Microport succeed.
A good place to start would be an analysis of why Microport failed.  I
doubt it was simply because they were understaffed in the tech support
department.  They should have had good cash flow, why didn't they?  How
did they get so deep in debt?  What was Televideo's role in their demise,
if any?

An analysis of the market would also be useful.  Is there actually a
UNIX market?  Personally, I doubt that anybody but AT&T, and possibly
SCO, will be able to make money directly from selling System V O/S's.
Microport was (is?) little more than a reseller.  As soon as an 80386
hardware vendors figure out that by giving away UNIX, they can sell
more hardware, there won't be much use for mere UNIX resellers.  It
looks like Everex may have already started doing this.  It'll be
interesting to see how hard they push.

Where would the new Microport fit in considering that Everex (and
Dell?) will probably have the low end market cornered, AT&T will
probably get the corporate accounts, ISC will get a share (plus
income from VP/ix and other licensing), SCO has a good chunk of
the VAR and end-user base covered, and places like Bell Technologies
exist in specialty markets.

>	The problems/questions are:
>
>	1) where do we get the "known" names on the technical team?

I don't know about "known", but knowlegable people are busy and
expensive.  Merely gifted programmers are a dime a dozen.  The
GNU guys already have the doing-it-for-love market cornered.

>   2) where do we get the capital?

Maybe Bush's 1000 points of light are looking for investment
opportunities?  I (and others, I imagine) would gladly fork over
some dough based on a good looking prospectus and the possibility
of direct participation in business activities.

>   3) What do we do with once we have it?

The $65536 question.  Certainly nobody would want to buy something
important from a company run by a 1000 pointy heads.  Maybe we
could sell timeshare slots for access to the UNIX source code. "The
TTY driver doesn't work on your Conan/AT?  You can diddle the code
Wednesdays from 6am-11am in July.  $100 for this lifetime privelege."


>        4) How and where do we set up the parent corporation?  ( again,
>I was thinking Texas, but that's because I am here...  )

Parent corporation?  You think we're a bunch of kids here?  Set it
up anywhere you could get a dozen people to work full time for nothing
for the year or so before the company shows a profit.  Texas sounds
perfect. :-)

>Comments anyone?

heh.

>-- 
>Eric Schnoebelen
>egsner!eric@texbell.swbt.com			...!texbell!egsner!eric
>egs@u-word.dallas.tx.us				...!killer!u-word!egs
-- 
Doug Salot || doug@feedme.UUCP || ...{zardoz,dhw68k}!feedme!doug