Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!amdahl!pacbell!att!mcdchg!ddsw1!nvk
From: nvk@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Norman Kohn)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.microport
Subject: Re: Microport Buyout ( was: Microport Status )
Message-ID: <3269@ddsw1.MCS.COM>
Date: 10 Apr 89 00:00:35 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: nvk@ddsw1.UUCP (Norman Kohn)
Distribution: usa
Organization: ddsw1.MCS.COM, Mundelein, IL
Lines: 47

In article <237@egsner.UUCP> eric@egsner.UUCP (Eric Schnoebelen) writes:
>
>In article <310@feedme.UUCP> doug@feedme.UUCP (Doug Salot) writes:
>-
>-In article <96729@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> plocher@sun.COM (John Plocher) writes:
>->	I tried to obtain the legal rights to Microport's driver source
>->	before I left, but because of SEC regulations about insider trading
>->	I would have had to pay "full asset value" for them, and I didn't
>->	have the ~$250K that it would have taken. :-(
>-
Doesn't sound like a definite case of insider trading to me...
but you'd certainly have needed legal counsel.

>	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.

OK, I'd be interested... but I wouldn't start at the financing end.
Microport couldn't make a go of it.  Your (our) group would have to
do better, unless we intend it as a hobby.  Step 1 is a business plan
that explains how the reborn Microport will make money.

Start by figuring out how to finance the telephone support people: users
buy a system, and phone at intervals for years afterwards. (Perhaps
a computer that answers and tells the caller to key in, via touch-tones,
his support number, before a salaried human picks up the phone.)

Would there be new products? Is this a growth market? How many systems
could we sell each year? Would the market saturate? Would users
buy upgrades?   

Televideo must have expected that the tie to uport would help to
sell hardware.  This has to have been a failure.  Perhaps uport
could do better with a different pattern of bundling, or with higher-
performance drivers or better exception handling, etc., to make it
stand out from the pack.  With unix it is probably essential to
be attractive to VAR's, and Xenix/Sco have an obvious leg up
with better visibility, etc.  

Software is a marketing nightmare:  if it's buggy customers scream
that it's defective, but if it works it lasts forever (no planned
obsolescence).  You die unless the market grows!

-- 
Norman Kohn   		| ...ddsw1!nvk!norman
Chicago, Il.		| days/ans svc: (312) 650-6840
			| eves: (312) 373-0564