Posts by Gordon Davies

Fundamental value

Scu,

Basically two reasons:

1) profit taking - the day traders can see a decent turn and close their positions.

2) many industry analysts still think that Intel have matured as a business, see little significant growth in the future and the current marketcap represents 'fair value'.

Holding intc for capital growth based on recent years performance just hasn't been that smart a decision, so the sooner it grows up and starts paying some serious dividends the sooner you might see this reach the giddy heights of $30+ again!

Alternatively, it would be nice to see some action behind the rumours of an active US investor/corporate raider stalking them who intends to stir the situation up, ask some serious questions of the board, and perhaps then go for a breakup..then we might see $30+ again.

Funny old game...

Can't help but think that this all sounds a bit like the old msft v open source battle that Msft have long since won...

Would I trust Google over Msft? would I trust the 'cloud' over my own secured infrastructure that essentially holds the intellectual value of my business? would I trust the program managers and IT peeps in the 'cloud'? Would their aims fit with mine?...We've already see SaaS downtimes (and from some of the biggest vendors)...we've already seen the 'cloud' in the UK moan and groan to breaking point....and of course I know that when they screw up and my data ends up being found on a hard drive somewhere then I shouldn't be at all bothered..

But hey, Salesforce and google say that we should party now anyway...and just trust them?

...No thanks, and for those of you that like the cutting edge - good luck, you'll need it!

HCi - irrelevant...

There are clearly a few hurt people here, but I would suggest there are a few that should put these events into perspective and move on with their lives. No business owes its employees a living, all it can do is try and get the big decisions right, and run the business with a wary eye on what the competition are up to.

No sane owner manager sets out to deliberately screw their business over, let alone people that have worked for him for years and still live on 'his doorstep. '

I don't know Richard particularly well, but from what I know of him, I should imagine this experience has ripped him apart.

As I said at the time, there are a myriad of pressures/reasons that the business got into the tangle that it did; some of these market dynamics it could and should have been able to foresee, and some were simply beyond its control.

Trying to be price competitive against global brands that enjoy huge component price discounts was always difficult, made even more so by local consumer migration attracted by a lower price at the point of purchase - even if the subsequent post-sales support was less than satisfactory - so much for customer loyalty? There are many who bought global brands on price that now regret their decision whenever they need engineering\technical support.

Personally, unless they make a sea-change in their business approach I see little prospect of this 'new' Evesham lasting too long.

I sincerely hope I am wrong.

Tough market, tough decisions, tough outlook

It is with some regret that I see yet another (inevitable?) demise of a long-standing and well respected UK system builder.

I know that over the years Richard and his senior management did pretty well for themselves, their business and their employees.

He has employed a lot of people, and contributed a lot to his local economy. However, this event is more than "just" about the demise of HCI (although it was a significant event and had a huge impact), there are a dozen other contributing factors, most of them 'global' i.e. competition from global Goliaths (and not always 'fair' competition, and often the source of this inequity was a structural failing of the marketplace where many believed and still believe that the Tier1 giants enjoyed huge advantages that were not always 'fair' and that the authorities have been slow to confront), who had and still have the economic muscle to compete on a scale still woefully misunderstood by the whole local industry, these factors where there for all to see. If there is any criticism it is a failure to adapt, evolve and move the business model on should have been accelerated years ago, so there are many contributory factors, many of which I believe were entirely outside of his control. I wish them well under their new guise, but if it more of the same, I expect this phoenix like-rise to be fairly short. It was a little surprising to see the new tie-up, but one can only hope that they have a clear vision of what they will do in the future, at the very least there can be no illusions of what they have to do to be successful again.

In the meantime, let's give Richard the credit he is due, he has risked everything over time to build a business that was successful for a very long time, and will still be attempting to employ a lot of local people. So many of the criticisms I have seen here and elsewhere are in my opinion entirely unwarranted, if you think that you could have done better or he should have done better, perhaps you should try and achieve what he did over the years, perhaps then you would understand the other side of the coin.

I haven't spoken to Richard in a very long time, so if by any chance he or any employees, ex-employees read this post, I wish you all the very best of luck in the future.