First, regarding Opty's response to that ridiculous comment about the Baroni report. And I'm not talking about its content, necessarily, I'm talking about its being "kept secret". Of course it's being kept "secret" with respect to the fact that it wasn't published/disclosed. I would hope that it contains recommendations for action, parts of which will be acted upon, and parts that won't - and probably/maybe for good reason. In any case, it involves business planning, which by its very nature is proprietary. In business, it's fundamentally understood that you don't share you business plans with your customers or competition. Would you want to tell your instant customers that your plan is to introduce a product at a relatively high price with a schedule of price reductions going forward? Would you want to tell your competition this sort of information, or "cost to produce" information? Product capability information - not only the performance capabilities, but also capabilities to capture markets. Which Markets?

What if an optional course of action provided in that report was for the company to dump another $20M into PDSG (or a component of PDSG)? After all, it is possible that if you throw enough money at something, its opportunity for success is enhanced. The option may not be worthy of serious consideration, but it certainly could be in there. You need to read about optional courses of action that will not even be considered? I grant you this may be an extreme example, but only to make the point.

Apologies to the impatient and the folks too lazy to read for an extra 60 seconds, and apologies to those with business background (as it is not my intent to insult your intelligence), but I can see this turning into an infamous "SGE Novel". Having given this warning....

Step back for a second and think of what the Baroni/Eclat report is all about. I strongly suspect it's two basic things. First, information to facilitate the (Business 101) Management Decision-Making Process. Second, information regarding the next step (implementation of actions) and how Baroni/Eclat can aid in implementation of various alternative actions.

First part: Again, not to insult (as I'm sure you and most here KNOW this), the Management Decision-Making Process is basically a three step process:

1) Identify the (real) problem(s).

2) Develop alternative solutions to the problem(s), including the merits and potential pitfalls of each alternative solution.

3) Adopt and implement the best solution.

Second part: This is where Baroni/Eclat's advertised expertise comes into play, and therefore may include a "sales pitch" towards further engaging their services. Among the merits (2 above) and implementation (3), include details of how Baroni/Eclat can make things happen.

Now, again, would it be wise for PTSC to share all of this? Would Eclat want this information shared (after all, their business is about selling the service of developing such information - why give it away?).

Now the final thought here. Did we hear of PTSC's general plan for the immediate future? Did we get the bad news already? Wasn't it already disclosed?

Final thought part 2, recognizing all of the above, how could the Baroni/Eclat report be characterized as purely "good" or "bad". As far as what it contains that is "bad", that would be the problem(s) identification part. And we have a pretty good idea of that based on what we were told in the 10Q and AMS. As far as what it contains that is "good", that would be some of the alternative solutions and how Baroni/Eclat can aid in the implementation of those solutions. And this information would obviously be proprietary. That's the only "obvious" thing.

I'll do a separate post on the other troubling part of your post.

SGE