This MacCallum has been around for a while and he has hired some really bright people to run Totally Hip on a day to day basis. Really bright engineers and a solid management team that is focused on moving Totally Hip forward. While Leeners and the new guys are running the day to day operations, it appears that old crazy Mac is working on the move and exposure in the US.
In December, I asked him where they planned to move the Totally Hip marketing and sales office and he told me that Brian Leeners and him were looking at Austin Texas, as well as Las Vegas, the Reno Sparks Carson City area and the Silicon Valley area. I thought it might be Austin Texas. From my notes I noticed that he mentioned MetroWorks was in Austin Texas and a friend was the Chairman. They make the C++ Codewarrior compiler that all Mac developers use.
Perhaps this is starting to make some sense on what we witnessed online?
If you wanted to name someone CEO and President, wouldn't you wait until Leeners gained the necessary industry experience and earned the respect of the industry to be named CEO and President? MacCallum had mentioned online a number of times last summer that he wanted to have Leeners as CEO and President, and only now do I think I understand why. They planned this move early last year based on the timing of expected new products for release in 1999.
Perhaps it is all part of a well thought out plan? It is appearing that way. Perhaps some of MacCallums online posts were made to move the loyalty of certain shareholders towards Leeners and away from him? Who knows what McCallum's motivation was? He's a bit odd, and outspoken at times, but MacCallum is smart and has the experience, and Leeners and Mac make a good team.
I'm happy MacCallum is moving to the US to expose Totally Hip and that Leeners is managing things on a day to day basis. The time to move to the US is now. Many new products and the market demand in 1999 is there for Totally Hip. Macromedia suffered loses in 1998 because of the market and heavy R&D, and 1999 looks like Macromedia will have a good year. Macromedia just had a good quarter.
Totally Hip is a mini Macromedia with real hot products. I expect better sales in 1999 for THW than what they will probably announce for their year end 1998.
I didn't invest in THW because I thought they would have huge sales or earnings in 1998 or the first part of 1999. Nobody could expect that they would with one Macintosh product in 1998 with limited channels. I sure don't expect it like some do. I'm realistic and the iMac sales started to only pick up after the iMac shipped in late August. Not enough time for THW to have us expect much for the end of 1998.
I believe we will see a tappering upwards of their sales, based on iMac sales. That means better sales each month that the iMac has been out there. And with 6,000 downloads of WebPainter 3 for Windows off of download.com in 3 days, this may indicate that 1999 Windows product sales will be a big contributor for THW.
I hope so.
I invested in THW because they have smart people at the product development and technology level, and have good management team that stays focused on a well planned strategy to capture a portion of a large market. They are in the right place, at the right time, with a number of hot new products on Mac and Windows for the hot rich media market.
MacCallum and Leeners are passionate about making THW a success. They are just doing it their way, not the way that certain shareholders were demanding last year. Many shareholders expected results overnight like Leeners said on TV. A friend sent me the video of Leeners. The video of Leeners said it all.
This move to the US is a smart one. I hope THW moves to Reno Sparks/Carson City area, but Austim wouldn't be a bad choice. That is if you could make some room for them down there Irb? |
