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-----Original Message-----
From: sptradr@xxxxxxxxx [SMTP:sptradr@xxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Saturday, June 06, 1998 3:31 PM
To: omega-list@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: The most significant event since man walked on the Moon!!!!!
brian wrote:
>The big company issue is not as silly as you think. If you want to be
>compatible with the rest of the world then you buy what everybody else is
>buying. Being compatible with everyboyd else has HUGE advantages. I use
>Quicken for personal finances because my bank gave it to me. Given, a
>similar feature set, I would use MS Money if I had to buy a PF package
>because it has a better interface and MS has the money to hire the QA
>personnel to make sure it works right the first time. Of course, if MS
>Money doesn't do something you need, then of course you'd go with the
other
>product even though you had to suffer with other problems.
tony wrote:
Quicken is the better product (IMO) and MS has been playing catch up with
Intuit and Quicken for years. MS even wanted to buy Intuit because they
realized Quicken was the leader, now and into the foreseeable future. If
you want compatibilty (ie, standardization), then you would, according to
your logic, buy Quicken. But if you want to buy big company products, then
you go with MS and Money. I still think that this logic is silly.
Interesting point. Intuit and Quicken have been marketing Quicken for a
VERY long time. I remember when all it did was write checks for the Apple
II. MS Money is relative newcomer. While Microsoft was making the world's
most popular compilers, spreadsheets, operating systems, wordprocessors,
graphics programs for both PC and Mac, Intuit nurtured Quicken along over
the years.
Microsoft didn't make the decision to buy Inuit because they said we can't
build one as good as Inuit. They decided to buy them because 1) It was
cheaper than marketing and hiring to get the same kind of penetration 2)
Gave them a HUGE instentaneous market presence and customer base that they
could then turn around and sell even more stuff and services too. That was
worth hundreds of millions to Gates. Why didn't Gates do something in
personal finance sooner? It was a question of where to put his resources -
making wordprocessors and spreadsheets for a huge world wide market that
was already established or try to forge a new, much smaller market as
personal finances. Marketing 101 tells you that the most money is made in
established markets. All you have to do is come up with a slightly
different way of doing something and people will flock with cash to your
shores. Whereas being a pioneer in a market is risky because you don't know
if there's customer out there willing to buy it. And the cost of creating
that market is much larger for a new product. Gates has always run his
company this way. Waiting until the trend was established then jumping in
with his own software. He let someone else create the market then he took
it over. He could have easily built a better personal finance package the
way he did with a spreadsheet to usurp VisiCalc, the way he did with Word
to break WordPerfect, and on and on.
I sometimes laugh at this herd mentality. It's almost as if people need
new things to learn to occupy their time . Technology has become a national
past time like watching television. People use gadgets to occupy their
time. What else are they going to do with it?
But anyway, my point was missed. We buy the product that is MOST POPULAR
(whether that comes from Inuit, Microsoft, Xerox, whoever) so that we're
compatible with the rest of the world. When it comes to software there's
power in numbers. The Intel's who use Outlook not CCMail, the Sharp Labs
who use and develop for NT not IBM OS2, my friend down the street who asks
me if I use Word, Hewlett Packard that wants a VC++ coder, not a Borland
C++ coder. It's the reason why I learn Access instead of some other
database. Everybody uses it and if I know it too, then I can make money.
People pay for experience and if I don't choose right then I have to play
catch up.
>This is a dangerous attitude. Do you like wasting your time learning new
>programs? Do you like loosing sleep wondering if your old data is
>compatible? I want 1 product from a company that I know with fair
>certainty is going to be around now and later. I can then set to work on
>really learning that software and getting the most from it now and later.
> If you were a programmer realying on Turbo Pascal (or even Delphi) to put
>food on the table you would have died a long time ago. However, since I
>knew MS Basic, Visual Basic was easy to learn and I'm a fat cat since all
>the major companies (read: deep pockets) want VB programmers.
Actually, my attitude is to buy the best possible product for the money.
How long a company has been in existence is irrelevant. Program learning
curves are largely irrelevant in a Windows universe. Nearly all programs
now are standardized to a Windows architecture, so liitle time is wasted
learning new programs. Data compatiblity is irrelevant as long as ASCII
and data translators exist. The Pascal vs Basic example served as a
comparison between a superior vs inferior product (IMO).
Basic didn't accomplish the tasks at hand as readily as Turbo Pascal did at
the time.
Now fast forward in time to 1990...then I was programming VB interfaces for
High speed data collection in WFW 3.11. VB was the superior product at this
Time for the task at hand. If you don't evolve then you loose the edge.
This is true but your comparing apples to oranges. If you needed speed,
Basic obviously wasn't the best choice. Microsoft hasn't made a Pascal so
you can't compare these two. But if MS had made a Pascal compiler, I'd bet
the world would have embraced that instead of Borland's. Borland came and
went and so did Turbo Pascal - even Pascal in general because MS didn't
make a Pascal compiler. Companies who relied on Turbo had to scramble to
find a replacement. This cost HUGE bucks and massive time. The company
you wrote Turbo Pascal code for has had to COMPLETELY rewrite their code.
If they had hired someone who knew Microsoft C, this would have been much
less of a problem. Companies who embraced the bigger Microsoft have fared
far better. Lotus came and went and so did CCMail. Intel now uses
Outlook. Bigger companies usually have more staying power than smaller
companies. IS Managers know this and that's why they choose Microsoft and
Intel. And that's why I feel more comfortable buying products from
established companies.
Windows has made learning easier but just the interface, not the
functionality. You can't know Easy Language just by knowing Windows. You
can't know HOW to use Tradestation or what all of it's features do just by
knowing Windows. So no matter what, there's still a significant learning
curve for products like Tradestation or a competing product, According to
your logic, if I know Excel then I should have an easy time with
Tradestation because they're both Windows-based programs. That's not true.
I agree that technology needs to be upgraded occasionally. But it's a
safer bet to choose bigger companies product if they are comparable. It's
better to choose VC++ instead of Borland C++, it's better to choose Vis
Basic than PowerBasic even though powerbasic generates code that is far
faster. Few people in the professional world even know it exists. It may
be superior product for high speed communication, but I would still choose
VB because it would be easier and less expensive for the company to upgrade
and maintain. I'd find a C++ DLL to handle the high speed part. That's
better than doing it in Delphi or Turbo.
My point still remains the same...get the best product for what you need to
do regardless of the size of the company or length of its existence.
Innovation exists mainly in smaller, less capitalized companies. And
acquiring that innovation gives you the edge...
Does acquiring innovation give you and edge or just a lot of headaches.
Innovation means bugs. Bugs which companies rely on pioneer buyers like
yourself to help them fix - for free!
As far as trading goes, I doubt that all the money and time you spend on
buying the latest greatest equipment to deliver quotes at the speed light
will make you a significantly better trader. That is, improve your bottom
line. Infact, you might even dip down because it's taken so much time to
ramp up and work out the kinks with the new equipment.
The key to successful trading is with yourself, not with the latest
greatest technology out there.
Of course, vendors don't want you to believe that. Omega spends millions
convincing people that to be the best trader you can be, you need Easy
Language so that you can backtest your systems.
I know traders that use friggin newspapers that make tons of money. How
many people can say that sitting in front of their whiz bang intraday quote
machine makes them more or actually ends up costing more. Sure it looks
cool, it's high tech, and it makes you feel powerful (until you get
whipsawed by intraday noise) but does it really help? I doubt for most it
really does.
But this is the age old trap for traders when they loose. Denial won't let
them believe that the problem lies within them. No, they blame their
antiquated 400MHZ Pentium II processor and 512K RAM complete with TradeLabs
that draws 3-D graphs Tradestation won't and the fastest coolest UMDS
server so they can rest easy at night knowing that while their automated
cash cow trading system continually scans 50 futures markets at the speed
of light, they weren't missing a single incomming tick!
Technology is definitely not the edge in trading.
><you wrote>
>"TradeLab (no s) has far less risk now than TS because TL is Y2K
compliant,
>and for the next 3 million years, according to Bob Brickey. <G> And TL
will
>give a professional trader a superior edge. On the other hand, without
>upgrades, TS dies on Dec. 31, 1999. And the Y2K patch is in the realm of
>vaporware... "
>
>Why does Y2K compliance equate to less risk in your mind? Seems to me the
>larger company with a larger installed base has a GREAT DEAL more to loose
>by not supplying Y2K compliance than a small start up like TradeLabs (or
>whatever the company is called). And don't think for a second that TS5
>isn't going to be Y2K compliant and that the patch for TS4 won't be out in
>PLENTY of time. Right now, I don't really care about it because that's
>1.5 years off in the future. It can be fixed as quick as a download and
an
>install.
You're clearly wrong here...Y2K is NOW!!! TS is NOT compatible NOW. Try
to enter a future contract or leap past Dec. 31, 1999 in the Omega server.
I'll bet that most folks will feel the Y2K heat in a year. You can bet the
farm that Omega is losing big bucks by not being Y2K compatible at a time
when most of their competitors are. Why? The wait and see game played by
consumers...who wants to buy a product for $2K that may be obsolete in 18
months? This situation clearly worries Omega. Why do you think Omega was so
hot to buy UMDS? Because it's a superior product to their own server. I
agree, though, that Omega would have to be brain dead, dumb ass, stupid to
ignore their installed base of TS users.
However, TradeLab and UMDS is Y2K NOW (along with Day Trader, Ensign (I
think), CQG, etc). When TL releases its link to UMDS, then TL will be in a
superior position. Why? I (and others) will be able to collect post-1999
data from practically any data feed BEFORE TS 5's release (and definitely
before the TS 4's patch upgrade). Also via TL, I can export that data to
any charting program of my choice. Then I'll have the edge over the TS
users who are still waiting for their "big company" and its promises.
Remember well the lesson of the 2 year delay associated with the release of
TS 3.5. I see way too much faith in Omega given their past history of
muffed software upgrades.
Am I wrong here? I disagree. Y2K is not NOW for me. While you spend your
money and your time buying and learning new software to make sure you can
chart your year 2001 leaps or your 2002 Eurodollars, I am studying today's
action in the S+P and determining where to trade it tomorrow. Or Sep
Eurodollars for a long term trade. Tomorrow (or the next couple of
contracts) is all that matters to me and to majority of futures and stock
traders. Most people using tradestation aren't trading 2000 leaps nor 2020
Eurodollars nor year 6000 options.
Omega knows that the majority of people using Tradestation don't care
about year 2,000 yet. Only the vocal, technically frantic, minority do.
TS5 will be out in full release in a few months. How much of a so-called
edge can that give you? Hardly any.
All these cool things you list in the paragraph above, are they going to
make you a better trader? Being able to collect data from any source
won't. Being able to collect post-1999 data won't. With all these cool
things you'll be able to do, do you really believe that you'll have the
edge over all the thousands and thousands of traders who instead of
believing that technology is they to success in the markets, spent their
time learning how to trade. I guarantee you won't have the edge over
traders Paul Tudor Jones who probably sill uses TS3.5 to trade just fine,
thank you very much. I don't think Y2K is as important as you think right
now.
Steve Moore of Moore Research still uses 9600 baud Signal and takes
thousands out of the market each year. I've got a BMI box that's superior
in technology but I can't trade like Steve yet. When last I looked, they
were still using Aspen Graphics (where are they now?) which is far less
flexible than TS, but they're making money hand over fist. Technology is
not his edge.
Maybe one could make an argument for the data export to a program like
excel could help. But you can do that in TS4 now and definitely in TS5.
I don't know for sure but I would doubt they're loosing the big bucks like
you say they are.
><you wrote>
>"If someone is so worried about BB being around in the future, then I
>suggest that you do as I did and do some research first. Bob's been
>developing high tech software for business and US Goverment (high security
>installations...nuke labs) almost forever. "
>
>I'm sure bob's a genius and has tons of money. How long will he stick
>around if this doesn't turn out to be a profitable venture? That remains
>to be seen. Time will tell. He's not doing this for charity. I don't
think
>bob's brilliance is a good indicator of weather or not he'll succeed. It
>doesn't take a phi beta cappa to develop great software or drive a
company.
> What it does take is marketing $$$, a superior product (development $$$),
>all delivered at a better price.
The internet make your marketing point moot. Bob's website generates a
hell of a lot of sales just by word of mouth. So sales = viability =
longevity. Fortunately, we are more patient with Bob delivering his wares
because he has a superior product. The days of expensive marketing
campaigns are drawing to a close. As far as big development bucks equating
to better products, that simply is not true. Small companies drive the
innovation curve forward rather than the large companies (ie, MS). Then
the big, slothy companies buy out the smaller, innovative ones.
Yes and no. Smaller companies do sometimes drive innovation but only
because that's the only way they can get started. They can't write a new
word processor and expect to compete with a Microsoft. Instead, they
develop a new product then get bought out for millions and they're rich.
For most start ups this is what they shoot for.
Competition drives innovation whether it be from two giants or two small
frys. Big companies have the power to establish their technology as the
standard while small companies can only hope to get bought out.
Large companies aren't sloths. Thanks to Microsoft we have inter program
compatibility, we have Windows to make learning software easier, we have
C++ classes, MFC which makes development tons easier, we have VBA and VB
that can work in any of the worlds most popular spreadsheets, word
processor, and database programs, FrontPage, and these programs all work
together. No other company would have done this. Innovation means
incompatibility because 1 company wants to do it one way and another
company wants to do it another way. Thanks to fact that Microsoft owns
software, we can cut and paste between applications, Internet is integrated
into the OS, etc. These are the things consumers have asked Microsoft for
because these are the things that save people time. Microsoft has
responded wonderfully. So well in fact, that no one else can compete.
Competition is important but it comes at a price to the consumer.
I don't think magazines should be too quick to throw in the towel because
the Internet is replacing their big budget color glossy ads. Maybe someday
this will be true that time is definitely not here yet. By the way, how do
you know what his sales figures are?
Small companies work their behinds off to build a market. Then when the
market gets big enough, a larger company buys them out. Why should the
large company spend huge resources to establish a market? It's not
necessary. A smaller company has less to loose so they build the markets.
><you wrote>
>"So I'm not too concerned about
>his longevity or capitalization. Few were concerned about Gates in a
>basement or Jobs in a garage a few years back <G>"
>
>Not worried about Gates? Jobs? How do you know? Anyway, if you had bet on
>Jobs you would have lost. Big time! How do I know? Because I did.
> Consequently, I know Mac and Apple II assembly and not Intel assembly. A
>lot of good that does me, huh!
But you were first out the chute! You had the edge for a time. I remember
well that all the trading and charting software programs were developed for
Apples and Mac, and virtually none for IBM-PC. Traders that used Apples
and Macs had the edge. Then the tide shifted in favor of IBM because of
Lotus 123 on the PC. I know people that had both Apple and IBM computers
and trading software for both. They had the edge because they had feet in
both camps while Apple and IBM slugged it out.
Technology does not give you the edge in trading.
Apple has always struggled to keep pace with PC's. It's never had the edge
and neither did I. Games worked better on the PC because of interupts and
everybody knew it. PC's were faster, more flexible. Traders that used
PC's weren't at a disadvantage. Traders that used Apples (and especially
Macs) did not have an edge. But if you owned one then you wanted to bel
ieve that.
The edge always shifts to people (traders) that utilize superior products
for the task at hand. Big or small companies...it really doesn't matter.
Software and hardware will continue to evolve and the edge will always
shift in favor of those that use superior innovations.
Technology does not give you a trading edge.
Technology will always evolve. What's cutting edge today, is antiquated
tomorrow. The difference in bottom line performance is negligible at best.
Technology needs to be upgraded occasionally but only after it's
established. People who invested in Newtons learned that lesson the
hardway. Do you think that people who bought the Alpha microprocessor when
it was first released fared significantly better than people who had slower
Pentiums. I doubt it. Technology does not equate to an edge.
If two products are comparable - one from a small company and large, I will
always choose the larger. This is because it usually means better support,
better service, better staying power, better compatibility with products
and other users, more opportunities, and most likelly fewer defects, and
overall a better product that I get more out of.
Brian
-Tony Haas
PS: This is the last entry on this thread for me. Go ahead and give me
your rebuttal cause I know you'll have one and then we'll call it quits.
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