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Kent;
Just like my favorite sergeant from Hill Street Blues, you are correct. Lets
be careful out there. Right now I am representing no one but myself. I am
spending some time discussing this issue with you all and some others. What
might come from that might have nothing to do with Traderware and all to do
with the relationships made and the trust and ability to share information in
an honest exchange.
There is a book that I read named "The Innovator's Dilemma." It is about why
some very good companies fail, despite having excellent customer focused
traditional management styles. What they don't see coming is the disruptive
technology and how that is going to affect them. This is an excellent book
and I highly recommend it. Carl Christensen is the author.
The open source approach is a very disruptive technology to existing software
developers. The people doing this will get better and better at what they do
and how they do it. As they get better they will be able to attack more and
more types of software, IMHO.
One of the key elements of the book is that sometimes companies make products
that they don't have customers for yet. They go out and find people who can
find a use for this technology. One of the examples in the book is the disk
drive industry. The major main frame computer companies did not need smaller
slower disk drives. So the guys who developed this started their own company
and went out and sought a market. The yet to be launched Personal Computer
sector was one market segment built with from this. These disk makers then
improved the speed and performance of their products are were able to attack
the higher margins of the main frame computer companies products. The rest is
history.
I appreciate your wise words and am taking heed. If there was a market
niche, either in trading or some other arena for Traderware, that could lead
to some good things for us in trading down the road. Or, maybe this is just
some an exercise that will lead to something else. Thanks again for the
input and your kind words.
Regards,
John J. Lothian
Disclosure: Futures trading involves financial risk, lots of it!
In a message dated 3/25/01 1:00:02 AM Central Standard Time,
kentr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
<< John, you've posted good information over the years to this and other
lists.
One question I would ask myself (or in your case, Yates and Hargrave) is
"Why did TraderWare Inc fail?" That's really important if you are planning
to spend any of your time on that piece of software and more importantly, if
you are going to represent the software to large financial institutions.
I bought TW right out of the gate because Mark was passionate about it and
passionate about Omega having it's collective head up it's collective ass.
I thought there was something wrong with the fact that the software appeared
so quickly on the scene but I bought it mostly for one reason: I wanted to
see a good alternative succeed. There had been hints on this list that
large institutions had toed the line and if I remember correctly, it was
stated plainly that TraderWare had gone profitable before the first
single-user license had been sold. It sounded like a good bet.
I never blamed Mark because it seemed like he had done what he could in the
promotional, marketing and business areas (and my assumption: getting
institutional backing) and Yates was the one who wasn't answering the phone
at 4:30 on weekdays and Yates was the one who didn't get back to me after he
said he would on several occassions and Yates was the one who never got my
particular installation working. But Yates also told me that he didn't get
his emails returned by Kent Gryzich which I find credible but which just
ticks me off more because it's just one more case of a piece of software out
there that people pay for but which isn't supported in spite of it's
humongous price tag. I had several phone conversations with Steve Yates and
he seemed like a reasonably good programmer and responded fairly quickly on
a couple of things. But competency and dogged perseverance are not the same
thing and I know firsthand that starting a business takes both.
After pursuing things with Steve for a while, I decided to let the
unanswered calls and emails go. TraderWare was either going to succeed or
it wasn't. I'm not one of those who thinks that the price of a piece of
software gives me a claim on a person's life, but I was certainly bummed out
that this alternative was off to such a rocky start.
The one real hesitation that I had when I bought TraderWare was that Mark
has at times displayed what we could call a mercurial personality. But
after a certain post by a certain person on a certain list explaining
certain things in a rather round-about manner, it seemed that Mark got
out-mercurialized. Maybe I interpreted things wrong (there was plenty of
room for interpretation in the post), but it seemed like one party wanted to
keep TraderWare on course and the other party wanted to just keep TraderWare
and do something else. Competency and dogged perseverance are not the same
thing.
The version of TraderWare that I used was not ready for most institutions.
If Steve Yates wants to make a go of it, I would a) find an independent
source of income, b) continue polishing TraderWare (it needs an interface
overhaul and needs to be hooked up to M3 (completely this time) if you
aren't going to develop a database for it), c) needs a publicity overhaul.
Start a website, let people download and use it for free for a year or so
while you fix it for free, then once (if) you have a stable product and (if)
enough people using it, start charging. But that route takes dogged
perseverance. Do you have it?
And John, there's still that question "Why did TraderWare Inc fail?" Maybe
you already have the answer. I don't know. Maybe you only have half the
answer. Just be sure you know exactly who and what you're dealing with
especially if you're going to go around representin'. More than buying
TraderWare, I regret that it didn't succeed. I also regret being short
1,000 shares of Schering-Plough on Friday when David Faber mentioned that it
might be a buyout target. They both cost me about the same thing but
atleast the trade was over quickly and I know exactly what went wrong.
Right now I just like it every time an Omega sales-weasel calls me and says
"Hey, would you like to try TradeStation Pro?" So much fun, and they are
paying for the call.
Let's be careful out there.
Kent >>
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