spoke:
I apologize for being repetitive. Let me try to refine my question so as not to repeat myself.
While I suppose it is possible that you actually do hold management accountable, you show no evidence of that with your posts here. Whereas you seem to require that others take a balanced approach to their opinions of the truthfulness of management, I don't see that same balance in your posts. Though you state that you hold management accountable, the things you post here only reflect the positive side of the issue. You apparently choose to not tell us about how your efforts to hold management accountable manifest themselves. In short, you seem to only tell one side of the story here.
Of all of the questions I have asked, I have come to the following conclusions.
NV has a tech that will work.
NV has been slow to deliver due to lack of funds.
The offers for financing that they have not taken are because they would have been far worse for the shareholders than the ones that they have taken. Also, the number of shares outstanding is a detriment to acquiring good funding packages. In virtually every conversation about funding there has been a concern that the current shareholders benefit as much as possible. I know that I will get a lot of flack about what effect dilution has had, however I believe that the funding choices so far have been the best ones available.
Money is the main risk that NV faces at this time.
2004 has a better promise for funds than previous years.
I have found management to be honest with me.
Now, to answer your question more directly. Because of what I learn, I haven't changed what I believe about the company, so I am still in support. When I hold them accountable for something, I have been satisfied with their answers. I will give you two examples.
1) When they announced they were buying shares last fall, I assumed they were buying them with deferred comp money because it was exactly the same scenario as one year earlier. However, I told them that I thought they should have been clearer about the purchase in the first PR instead of letting the clarification come a month later in the filing. I may or may not have posted that I asked them about the purchase after the PR, and gave them my opinion about how it was done. It really didn't matter that much in relation to the main points, which are:
Do they have the tech.
Can they get the money to bring it to market.
Can I trust them to get the job done
Can I trust what they tell me.
2) When Excel said this week that Ray lied in the PR from Feb. of 2000, I checked it out. I wasn't going to post the results because I found out what I wanted to know and I didn't want to rehash it here on the board. I share many of my findings with people on the phone and though PM's. People whom I feel are objective and with whom I can have a rational conversation. If I felt that the board was objective and we could rationally and logically discuss something I would post it, however many on the board have made it a child of RB in my opinion, and I don't have the time to keep arguing points with those who can't or won't see logic, or simply can never agree with the way I view the information.
Here is what I found, so I can illustrate my point.
Someone asked me to call Ray and ask him about the PR. Instead I called someone not involved in the PR, John Howell. I asked him whatever happen to the CD business card, and was there much interest in it. The short version is that he said Rich went out and promoted the heck out of it, and generated a ton of interest. When they came down to making it however, he said that it was too data intensive, and that it couldn't be profitable. He said that there was not a good business plan.
That was sufficient enough for me to see that Ray was not lying when he said that new prospects were calling the company and they couldn't keep up. The reason I wasn't going to post it was that I expected Excel (and possibly others) to jump in about JH being a liar and you can't believe what he said. Well, I asked it in such a way that there would be no reason to lie, and, he has never lied to me that I know of. I didn't want to spend all day defending what I found out. When I looked at that PR this week, the answer that I ended up hearing was exactly one of the scenarios I thought about. None of the naysayers on this board seemed to think that there could be a good explanation, so why argue with them about it. Excel has turned off his truth detector when it comes to NV (IMO), and so he sees everything as a lie. Some others are close to that.
I see things differently from the ones I argue against, and I have decided to post what I believe but not get involved in evey little argument that goes on, and that requires that I don't post everything that I learn. I post positive because I believe that Brad has done an admirable job over the last 18 months with what he has had to work with. Ray too.
If they can't come up with the money soon to get the product to market, then they will have failed. However I believe that they will succeed. I believe they are honest, but not always as open as I would like. After the quiet period is over, we will see if my support has been warranted.
That's my story, and I'm stickin' to it. (for now anyway)
AI
