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Current group: comp.bbs.misc
ITS, Inc. for Sale - Reply to Skidder von Cleese - TURNKEY
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| | From: | Estate of Eric Langjahr | | Subject: | ITS, Inc. for Sale - Reply to Skidder von Cleese - TURNKEY | | Date: | 12 Nov 2004 12:47:51 -0800 |
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 | The Estate of Eric Langjahr just recently became aware of the post by
Skidder von Cleese dated 9/12-13/04, in reply to the Estate's post
dated 8/31/04. Potential purchasers of Eric's stock should know that
the Estate STANDS BEHIND EVERY WORD of its original post.
Mr. von Cleese, holding himself out in his post as agent on behalf of
ITS and Michael Pizzolla, tried to sabotage my brother's estate's
ability to sell Eric's stock for fair value. Mr. von Cleese did that
by actively spreading false and misleading legal, technical and other
information, at my late brother's expense.
As a result, my brother's estate is duty-bound a) to try to mitigate
the damages caused by Mr. von Cleese and b) to set the record straight
in DEFENSE against Mr. Von Cleese's ATTACKS on my brother's legal
interests. For those reasons, the Estate will try to correct Mr. von
Cleese's misleading descriptions of the applicable law and facts.
Mr. von Cleese's post contended, rather fantastically, that ITS is not
a largely automated, turnkey business. Mr. von Cleese also misspeaks
aspects of ITS's technical project requirements. The Estate disagrees
with Mr. von Cleese. Further, based on his words in the past, so does
Michael Pizzolla.
According to Eric, no one at ITS (besides him) possessed any
programming skills.
If, as therefore appears to be the case, Mr. von Cleese is not a
professional programmer with substantial experience programming
commercial-quality software systems, Mr. von Cleese is not qualified
to comment on anyone's programming skills or the technical skillsets
required for any proposed project.
But, in contrast to what Mr. von Cleese said in his post, in the past,
Eric's little sister has herself, personally spec'd out, designed AND
developed commercial-quality, object-oriented, multi-tiered,
SQL-compliant, database-driven, commercial software applications which
were successfully sold to businesses by software development and
software consulting companies. Further, I have been a paid,
professional developer-consultant on object-oriented, database-driven,
commercial software systems in legitimate high tech cities.
Like my big brother, I have diverse interests. And Eric and I had
many, many long conversations about programming theory and practice.
So, contrary to Mr. von Cleese's post, a little Langjahr Family
consulting may actually go quite a long way - IF desired by the buyers
of Eric's stock.
If, as Mr. von Cleese contends, ITS is not a largely automated,
turnkey business, then, since Eric's death, would Mr. von Cleese have
us believe that ITS sends employees out to observe every race at every
track, to manually collect information about all of those races; to
manually document all of that information; to manually code all of
that information; to manually index all of that information; to
manually store all of that information; to manually retrieve all of
that information; to manually deliver all of that information to every
customer on demand; to manually display (and re-display, ad infinitum)
all of that information for each and every customer, in any desired
format, at will; to manually bill each customer for that information;
to manually track each customer's account, etc.? Surely not.
Mr. von Cleese should take a look at the legend at the bottom of the
ITS website:
"Handicapper's Daily®, the original online form, was formerly known as
the Handicappers Daily Racing Form and the Electronic Daily Racing
Form. ITS, Inc. is an Authorized Dealer of Equibase Company. The
Thoroughbred Industry's Official Database of Racing Information."
Online … Electronic … Database … Racing Information. Since the
beginning of ITS, day in and day out, my brother's software has
collected raw horse-racing data from the source; processed the data
into meaningful information; indexed and stored the data in a database
for on-demand retrieval; output the data into a file on demand;
uploaded the file to a server; enabled the file to be downloaded by
ITS customers; then displayed (and re-displayed, ad infinitum) the
data on customers' computers, in the user's choice of user-friendly
formats that help customers do their handicapping.
Eric's software still does all of that today, without any significant
manual labor. The Estate thinks it's fair to call that automation.
That automation generates the core of ITS' revenues. Other software
of my brother's, called infrastructure, automates various internal
business processes of ITS for the various phases of managing customer
accounts. So, yes, of course, the bulk of ITS' revenues are generated
via a mostly AUTOMATED operation that is virtually TURNKEY!
The one thing that Mr. von Cleese and I can agree on is that my
brother was truly in a technical class by himself and made an
irreplaceable contribution to ITS - and the world. But, truthfully,
Eric was grossly under-challenged by his technical work at ITS for a
very, very long time. He continued to do all the boring technical
work himself solely to increase ITS' profits.
No one could ever replace Eric - but someone will eventually have to
succeed Eric - IF ITS ever wants to have any new or improved products
or infrastructure. If it does, the Estate agrees that, FROM THE
COMPANY'S STANDPOINT, a programmer would be the optimal successor to
Eric's stock, because only a programmer could enhance and extend the
code base that Eric built.
But that is strictly optional. For the PASSIVE investor, ITS
continues to generate substantial revenues from its pre-existing
products and infrastructure. All the passive investor must do is
deposit the checks. That's pretty turnkey.
For the more active investor, a successor programmer needn't be
anywhere near Eric's programming league to do the work that may, by
ITS's choice, lie ahead. Any professional programmer today with
solid, quality experience should be versed in object-oriented
programming. As long as he is hard-working and motivated, like Eric,
and blessed with the good health that my brother was not, there is no
reason why Eric's work at ITS may not be carried on by newcomers.
In fact, from the time that Eric entered the hospital until a few days
after Eric's death, Michael Pizzolla repeatedly informed my family how
he had told Eric time and again that Mr. Pizzolla was willing to go
out and hire someone off the street to do the programming work Eric
was too sick to do. So, unlike Mr. von Cleese, the current operator
of ITS obviously didn't think it would be difficult at all for someone
to replace Eric as programmer at ITS.
Further, from the time that Eric entered the hospital until a few days
after Eric's death, Mr. Pizzolla also repeatedly told my family that
Mr. Pizzolla's marketing strategies were the primary reason for ITS's
success. So, contrary to Mr. von Cleese's post, the words of the
current operator of ITS confirm that, at least for the buyer of Eric's
stock, ITS is indeed a turnkey operation.
DISCLAIMER: THE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ESTATE OF ERIC LANGJAHR DO NOT
WARRANT OR GUARANTEE ANY CLAIMS MADE BY THE CURRENT OPERATOR OF ITS
AND ANY RELIANCE ON SAME IS AT YOUR OWN RISK.
It will be a while before it is seen whether a court will judicially
award the other alleged shareholder of ITS any stock in the company.
But the Estate has all the legally valid proof it could want that Eric
owned AT LEAST fifty percent of ITS.
As a matter of law, company control follows ownership, not the object
of Mr. von Cleese's loyalty or Mr. von Cleese's assessment of ITS
personnel. Is it possible that Mr. von Cleese doth protest too much?
Contrary to what Mr. von Cleese said in his post, I KNOW in my heart
that my big brother is applauding his biological family's defense of
his interests - against people, like Mr. von Cleese, who appear to
have turned so quickly on his memory.
This reply to Mr. von Cleese is posted on behalf of Eric's father,
Charles Langjahr, in his capacity as co-administrator of Eric's
estate.
Janet Langjahr, as agent on behalf of
Charles Langjahr, Co-Administrator,
Estate of Eric Langjahr
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