uWink Inc. (UWKI)

[the big guy]

A "deal", when obtained by a software company, usually will read in the following manner:

"X Million over X years".. like 5M over 5 years.

It is composed of:

- license fee (for a niche player like uWInk, $100k-1M), based on # seats in the implementation.
- Services training. maybe up to 50-100k.
- Maintenance fees. a % of the license fee in perpetuity, which gives the customer upgrades and telephone support ongoing.

In that sense, custom features at one implementation become product features in the core product.

The terms may not be revealed for competitive or other reasons... as is the identity of the customer.

Companies tend to focus on services or product, sometimes even waiving the license fee. I worked for one that did that. The % Maintenance can be fairly high... 20%/year? I have not worked in this business since 2001, I can't remember.

The point is, the kind of numbers uWink is reporting and how they are doing that does not give us much ability to forecast.Usually such an announcement will cause the stock price to jump, but that is based on the math. They gave a number ($90k) for the quarter. What can you make of that?

So, going forward.. It looks like uWink has a couple of onesies and twosies kind of pilot things and is working on a couple more. Keep in mind; what kind of impact will it make? 50k? how much impact will that make?

Now a major deal... 1M? a large part of Chilis? That would propel it up to 2-3$ immediately. The fact that they are just setting up sales channels now and getting on preferred vendors lists is disquieting, because they are maybe 6 mo away from a major deal. Why would they even bother mentioning it?

So if they get similar small deals, if the stock jumps.. sell some. most likely it will fall back down again. Unless it is a real deal, than hold for dear life.