Tinker:

Tomorrow I hope to put together a more complete reply but for now I just want to mention that you seem to be forgetting all the software wannabe gorillas and chimps. If I'm reading the book right, software chips do a lot better than hardware chimps and there can a large number of them: VPNs, VoIP, security, data mining, storage, network performance monitoring, billing, etc., etc.

One software company that I have a very good feeling about is Micromuse [MUSE] but I should do the numbers first. I would love to hear opinions on Veritas (besides Alex's :) ), Portal, Cognos, Checkpoint, Cyberguard, Amdox, and Manhattan Associates to name a few. I'm not mentioning the likes of BEAS and Siebel because I really don't understand their business.

In the royalty game, yes, Wi-Fi is certainly a possibility. One that I like very much which has Buffettesque conditions is Intrado [TRDO]. If they grab the 911 niche that is going to be one heck of a toll gate.

Lots of work ahead of us here!

Denny Schlesinger
Caracas - Venezuela
denny@softwaretimes.com