is... a buy and hold investor of dividend US and Canadian stocks
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so either Chris is really smart but full of it (wrong), or he is an imbecile and you choose to believe him.
which is it or does it matter?
LMAO
OK, since we are all quoting other people on other boards.. Robert Moss over there on Yahoo expresses himself quite well here:
Let's be realistic. When I bought this stock, I did so because I backed the man. Atari and Chuck E Cheese. You cannot get much better than that. Bushnell is/was a pioneer. Businessman...no. Pioneer..yes.
If he had proper financial advisors, then they should have allowed the float of this business to occur on 2 conditions.
1. Surround Bushnell with a solid financial/organisational person. Not a boffin, but someone who could implement.
2. Stick to the strategy.
Restaurants and franchises were the key to my interest.
This strategy has now changed. Why? Because they cannot get it to work. Three restaurants will not make money, and they are not opening any more?
All this time and no income. No deals. Spend my money, spend your money, spend the investor's money, draw salaries.......where is the income?
This company will go to the wall. Clearly there is no money left now, after the last restaurant opening, so where do they get cashflow?
From the four terminals being used as a pilot? Where is the contract? What kind of low level pilot is this? From the $50k they may have received from the only software sale that I am aware of? I wonder whether they have been paid?
Bushnell is probably still broke so.......
Oh yes, they could go to the banks! Who in their right mind would lend this company money?
....of course....the shareholders. Come in netman, you can prove your faith in this management team. When they come for their next $10m make sure that you are there.
I would love to, because I still believe in the original strategy but they will have to do a lot of explaining before i even consider stumping up any more cash. Listen, you cannot dilute anything that is worthless can you?
one man's opinion, and he is being negative/ blunt. But there is lots of truth there as well.
no one got this?
for the record... I would not take what Chris whatisname has to say as 100% true. I would not say he is full of it, but the press announcement from uWink is not definitive, therefore he should not be.
I was thinking of the scene where the little kid bends the spoon.. maybe it was in there..
btw was that a compliment, an insult or something else? I can see through it? through what?
market will go up for a few days on monday? A story appeared in the Canadian press that this accord will cause the US dollar to drop 10% compared to other currencies..
buy some Canadian stock!
doh! do you work in a nuclear power plant by any chance?
Cool movie!
The Matrix?
keep those questions comin'!!!
you seemed to be asking. I will post if I buy, and when..
thanks for asking!
Could be transaction-based pricing, which would make any assumption about a "license" deal ambiguous. uWink could be getting simply a percentage of business from those terminals based on transactions and no license fee. Therefore no cost to chilis, only revenue.. and Chris' statements are ambiguous.. This is much like the way pop machines are places on premises.. it is one kind of model for pricing software, commonly used in ERP systems business.
4 terminals vs how many in HH, MV, and Woodland? how much difference would it make?
uWink release said "initiative", never used any definitive language. Only person thus far has been Chris.. on that basis, I would not entirely trust it. That is just the way it is. I am surprised he used that kind of definitive language.
John
You want to know my thoughts on getting back into this?
I would make an end-of-year/beginning of year play on this. It is in a downward trend, but has great potential. It is unique, interesting product that is widely applicable. It is a question of when/if it takes off. It also has multiple revenue streams and it's own testing lab, both huge advantages.
But, they are also losing money and have capital structure problems (unable to borrow money). I see this as the more important factor right now. Highest probability is that this will force changes or further financing.
Volume is good, lack of upward price movement is not.
October is one "year-end", which would indicate mid Oct to buy, but next financials are due in November.
Taking all of that into account, I would wait until mid-Nov financials to come out and clear the air.. waiting until after santa claus rally would make it mid-Dec. Likelihood is as well that deals would be announced early in New year, as that is when new budgets become available. So buying mid-Dec is still 08.
Take some profit early in year.
Those are my thoughts...
I don't get it. Is that from a movie?
is that similar to the "n" key being beside the "B" key? I always misspell that word Beer, especially when I have had a few!
now that was definitely guesswork... i had no direct evidence to suggest that Mr Wilkness was about to resign.. just think he is in a hot seat.
did you notice that the Money Flow Indicator has just started to trend down? In the last few downturns, this indicator has forecasted a downturn in the stock. That is to say, it has started to trend down prior to the price movement...
hence, hanging by a thread...
maybe I just like to get different perspectives.. so what? At least i am consistent.
ever think that the Chilis deal was an LOI? (Letter of Intent). I said in my post to the author on PeakStocks.. that there was a "high probability" of a deal. That to me means an LOI has been signed. Maybe it is private. That does mean that a deal is uWInk's to lose (if they screw it up). Probably the size of the deal is under discussion and dependent on the results of this study. It also means that no money has changed hands, and that the author is making an assumption. Maybe everybody at uWink thinks it is 95% probability. It may be.. but it can still go wrong. As long as it goes all right, there will be terms announced in the next earnings release, because it will be final. Fact is, if it was a deal it would have been announced as such, not as an "initiative". You don't just go and "install" terminals in restaurants without some kind of understanding.
Well I am still being objective and accurate. I have seen these things not work out.
Regardless, a vendor needs a flow of deals, not just one. For every new deal that gets signed, there is one being completed, so the new deal just takes its place. This deal, with it's probability, would form part of a sales pipeline.. with an overall forecast.. the only thing of relevance is what that forecast is and is it enough to make them profitable.. not that there are a few terminals in a restaurant at Chilis.
If you look at the market now, when a hitech company gets a deal.. the stock goes up momentarily and then continues it's downward trend.. uWink is not immune to that. Moreover, uWink has a financial problem.
So, I am still happily out of uWink. Hope you are happy with your position as well.
UWKI held up by a thread. LMAO!!
and just for the record netman.. let's say uWink gets some big deal and doubles tomorrow?
CONGRATULATIONS!
it is all about the odds.. and playing many possibilities. Not being myopic and limiting yourself to one. There are also winners at the gambling tables.
Honestly, if that happens I will be most congratulatory.
EVERYBODY HAVE A NICE WEEKEND AS WELL.
you know Netman, I remain really interested in this.. but am I going to spend my time arguing with you? You seem kind of fixated with it. Believe me I have seen lots of software vendors. uWink is no different. It is fascinating/interesting to sit here and wonder where uWink is at. Likely because everybody goes to restaurants and I can relate much easier than a deeply technical company.
I am not going to debate excessively about it. Just trying to present a balanced, somewhat skeptical (which I believe appropriate, point-of-view). Call it being the Devil's Advocate.
You can think what you like as can others. Why would you reprint my conversation with Robert Moss over there on yahoo? seems a bit strange.. people can read for themselves.. he seems like a good bloke.
???? just wondering... like everybody else... ???
no price movement!
Here is why I said what I did:
The dynamic between software Seller/ Buyer works like this:
Seller wants to sell technology and get customer to sign. Buyer wants to try it out first. Establish business case. Make it do what ever they want. Seller tries to sell generic product.. not so applicable here... and get Buyer to sign contract. uWink is a fairly generic product that would not need customization.
Result: piloting, or simulation takes place.. a test run. etc. no money changes hands. Seller pushes for contract. Seller waffles.. etc.. finally... deal.
My concern was that Chris was assuming there was a deal when there are only discussion taking place. To me this looks clearly like a trial.. a piloting or validation exercise. Possibly at uWink's expense. I have never seen words like license or contract thrown around like that so loosely.
Remember the Florida franchise thing? Wording was definitive; uWink has "entered into" Area Development Agreement.. how did it turn out? Customer weasled out.. nothing. rien... nada.. therefore I am just not making any assumptions.
still comfortable with waiting until New Year.. Customer here may know uWink needs this (the bigger) deal financially and may use that to their advantage..
good going uWink. I asked my question, got my answer. You can judge for yourselves.
John
there is more:
# John Cross Says:
September 25th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
OK, if you say so. It leaves alot open to imagination. I looks alot to me like a “piloting” stage of a sales cycle, where a prospective customer gives a potential system a real-life test before purchase. This is commonly done. The potential deal would be quite big, and I have to wonder whether or not this is Corporate, or simply for a few locations. I would think it would be at the Corporate level. If that is indeed the case, if uWink got a deal of that magnitude it would skyrocket, which it clearly hasn’t. So, be careful about how you couch this.
There are clearly ramifications for Chilis as well. For one thing, how would their employees react to something that seem to steal their jobs… there are organizational change issues. This is a complex undertaking for Chillis. But, I agree that there is a high probability of an imminent deal and perhaps these 4 terminals are permanent.
Anyway, good for uWink.
# Chris Fernandez Says:
September 25th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Hey John,
Just in case I didn’t make this clear in the post, this deal is with Delaware North, a franchisee of Brinker, BUT had to get the approval of Brinker.
In other words, although initially more deals might only come in restaurant locations owned and operated by Delaware, eventually the hope is that Brinker will also offer this to any of their other franchisees, or install it themselves in their company-owned restaurants.
Nothing has been finalized yet on that front though.
As for the employees, think of it this way: instead of taking orders, they are merely running food.
Since the terminals are not at all of the tables, they would still be doing what they are doing, just that some of the tables would only require them to bring the food out, not take orders.
They still interact with the customers and get tips, but in the grand scheme of things, the less man-hours that are spent serving customers, the more money the restaurant locations make.
Chris
don't you think it is better to be skeptical rather than accepting everything at face value immediately? i find it tends to help you..
A good thing that can't be "igno'ed", but more Vapor than anything else. A Vapordeal. I will explain later!
If this actually were to happen with an organization the size of Chilis... the stock would double instantly.. what is the stock doing today?... tune in to the Big Guy's posts to learn why!
I am "indefatigable".
indefatigable \in-dih-FAT-ih-guh-bul\, adjective:
Incapable of being fatigued; not readily exhausted; untiring; unwearying; not yielding to fatigue.
i got nothin'..
we have the best clubhouse. In the winter months, our club goes skiing.. cross-country though.. all of the hills we do (which are posted on the walls of our clubhouse), are UPHILL.
why don't you join the "Big Guys" Club? In our club it is unnecessary to wear rose-colored glasses while looking at the monitor, and a scuba license is not required!!! we talk about other fun stuff like cars an mechanical mayhem.
actually that last comment was unnecessary... I like to watch the credits. where was it filmed.. ? how many crews? what special effects.? I am one of those ones that is still there after everybody else has left..
Good analogy. I at least know what they are...
btw netman, do you know who usually writes these things? it is normally an administrative/ marketing support type. Maybe a consultant. In either case, they don't have the technical knowledge to do it right. The key people like Nolan and his son don't have time. They approve it, sign it off. You saw a Work-In-Progress and were bandying it about like it was fact... what we see now is the finished product.
Not true netman, but that website is no longer accessible.. so I guess we won't know. My intention is to help people who use this board to be discerning when looking at s/w companies and to separate reality from wishful thinking, with a realistic appreciation of what uWink can/ cannot do with it's relatively small 4-person development staff. It is in their best interest to do that. I get that number from the R&D budget listed in F/S, btw.
I can give 2 good examples of when the term vaporware would be applied. In the late 90's Oracle, then a database vendor, decided to get into the application business. They had a road show and gave a good presentation. Everybody viewing it realized what it was. It is a somewhat mocking slang term that is used. Similarly to a vendor referring to an "anomaly" or an "undocumented feature" when it is really a bug and they are just letting customers do testing. Testing is expensive and that is one way s/w companies save money. uWink, as an example, has a big advantage with it's restaurants in this area.. as long as they don't mind putting people off when new features do not work as intended. In the late 90's the players were Baan, Peoplesoft, SAP, etc. Now Oracle is an established player, along with SAP.. and maybe a few others. They were succesful in their efforts to develop applications.
A more personal example occurred when I was with Nortel in the mid-90's. A VP of Engineering put on a show of what was supposedly production software and presented it to a VP from Nortel that was looking at the operation. When pressed, and that is important, it came out that the software was a one-time effort, a facade, a mock-up for the purpose of that presentation and that this division of Nortel had no production software ready. It was hard-coded and lacked any of the architectural ot scalability features of production code. The VP was later fired. I actually liked the guy. He was trying to get something done, just did not work out. Due to a number of factors (changing requirements, political problems, etc) in 4 years of existence that group just could not get any production software written.
2 great examples of vaporware. I hope that the readers of this board can be discerning and realistic about what uWink can and cannot do. I am not the one being stupid, ignorant or anything else. Quite the opposite. When I see a sales presentation I know just the questions to ask to tell what is relaly there. I hope readers of this can as well.
If my input is hot helpful, then you and anyone elses are quite welcome to put me on ignoe and believe anything you want. You only hurt yourselves.
You, my friend are the one that does not understand. The concept of vaporware and the software sales process and cycle is obviously beyond you. I will try again. I am not saying that uWink is doing any such thing. I am saying that the old new.uWink.com website talked of certain applications that do not yet exist. Furthermore, the new website does not convey that false message. I am also saying that software companies do in fact make sales presentations that refer to future developments, the Product Roadmap. To talk about sofware on the drawing board is not uncommon. They just have to be careful not to misrepresent their current offerings, for fear someone may buy it on that premise and be misled. It can and does happen. I have known of several lawsuits. So I am clearly not making any such accusation about uWink, it is just that you are not understanding me.. that is unfortunate. That old website did have the smell of BS (vapor) and was quickly blocked by uWink, maybe because of all the attention it was getting on this board. It ws clearly a prototype and incomplete and inaccurate.
I have a depth of experience in the software world that you clearly lack and as such are getting all out of joint about a simple term that is common thrown around, at least was back in the heady days of the 90's when lots of companies were getting all kinds of stuff, often in the vaporware stage, ready for y2K.
Evryhting on the Product is very real, I realize that. It is also applicable to any restaurant whether it is in an airport or not.
Happy landings.
You, my friend are the one that does not understand. The concept of vaporware and the software sales process and cycle is obviously beyond you. I will try again. I am not saying that uWink is doing any such thing. I am saying that the old new.uWink.com website talked of certain applications that do not yet exist. Furthermore, the new website does not convey that false message. I am also saying that software companies do in fact make sales presentations that refer to future developments, the Product Roadmap. To talk about software on the drawing board is not uncommon. They just have to be careful not to misrepresent their current offerings, for fear someone may buy it on that premise and be misled. It can and does happen. I have known of several lawsuits. So I am clearly not making any such accusation about uWink, it is just that you are not understanding me.. that is unfortunate. That old website did have the smell of BS (vapor) and was quickly blocked by uWink, maybe because of all the attention it was getting on this board. It ws clearly a prototype and incomplete and inaccurate.
I have a depth of experience in the software world that you clearly lack and as such are getting all out of joint about a simple term that is common thrown around, at least was back in the heady days of the 90's when lots of companies were getting all kinds of stuff, often in the vaporware stage, ready for y2K. Whether or not it was clearly a sales presentation about future development or an ongoing sales effort, BS was BS otherwise referred to as Vaporware. In case you do not know, when two parties sit down to discuss a serious purchase of enterprise software, they throw out the marketing material like what you see on that site and get down to serious business. A seemingly small detail like (number of concurrent users - technical architecture) can become a major issue for a major customer, as can functionality, process, impact to union workers, all kinds fo things. Every detail matters. A missing piece of functionality in that discussion can be as meaningful as a missing application on that page. Same result..
Everything on the Product is very real, I realize that. It is also applicable to any restaurant whether it is in an airport or not. A phone call on the major paplications would probably land you with Mr Franchising. The QSR whatever stuff you could probably buy outright..
Happy landings.
let's drop the term "vaporware" it is an industry term and slang at that..
The Deleware thing is a trial, I would guess. No deal, no $$ changing hands. A "Validation exercise" as was termed in last interview with uWink. There are significant organizational considerations for the chain that adopts uWink. This is just a teaser, a trial, to fuel those discussions. Mr franchise is likely leading..
End of year = mid-October for institutions.. but I would wait until next earnings release to let the ush_t hit the uf_n if it does. Maybe mid-Dec.