I was interested in the nuts and bolts of operations and asked a few to that effect. Carrie said she had divided Harctourt into 2 business segments: comsumer and commercial. My questions addressed how each worked.
On the consumer side she said the stores were small, more like small radio shack outlets (my comparison), than like CompUSA big stores. They focused on building custom PCs and distributing products such as Samsung monitors.
On the commercial side a sales force (Challenger) worked from a number of offices and called on customers both on site and over the phone to gather leads, make contacts and establish long term sales relations. This included efforts to tie customers into a contractual agreements for both hardware and software.
I am in total agreement with the previous posters on Carrie's outstanding business knowledge. She answered all questions directly with no hedging, except for a specific time frame for a new exhange listing and a refusal to rule out the possibility of a reverse split. It was clear, however, that the idea of a reverse split was anathema to both the management and all shareholders.
