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Dear friends and colleagues,
Well Y2K is almost at an end so it's time for me to generate
my annual "State-of-JGA" message for those of you who are
eagerly rifling through your mailboxes in anticipation of
news.
By accounting standards it's been a great year - our best
ever. But in my opinion, success in business is not a worthy
standard for measuring greatness. (Besides, it's only one
year. Don't ask me about 1999.) For me personally, greatness
means someday being able to put on my tombstone, "Founder
of JGA - providers of the best SPC software the semiconductor
industry ever underutililized." (No rush). But enough on this
morbid subject. Here's some real news.
Kerry, had a great year. He managed to fight off his craving
for haggis, and did not visit Scotland. He'll be there next
year for sure. But he has a new second home deep in the heart
of - what's the name of that state? These days they're calling
it Bush country because that's the size of most of their trees.
Actually we have several good customers down there, including
NSC.
Sol also had a fantastic year. He's done more travelling
than ever. He even got to spend a month in Israel, his first
home. This was the first time we ever had to install a data
capture system while simultaneously being pelted with rocks.
He also traveled to Korea for the first time and came back
raving about all the cute young girls with perfect little
figures. His wife instructed me not to send him there again.
Paula left the company for the sixteenth time. She was replaced
(Paula can never really be replaced) by Natasha - whose last
job was stroking a rowboat for a guy named Boris.
Our man in the field, Mo, was only strip-searched three times
this year while travelling internationally (We include Texas
and Utah in international travel.) He said, "It was a disappointing
year."
Our "main man" in software, Dat, has been busy stinking up
our lunchroom cooking not-quite-dead Vietnamese delicacies
as well as working on a new release of Trendviewer with many
advanced features, including the ability to predict which
Fridays your boss will be sneaking out early.
Andres, a nice young recent graduate from Cal State has found
a home in our software department. He's originally from Colombia.
In choosing his career he was torn between writing software
and hauling coffee beans.
Our "other" software department in India continues to do
the brunt of the heavy lifting at JGA. As has been my custom
recently, I again visited Anu, Vijay and Nilesh in their native
habitat. But next time, I need to remember not to go in June.
It's like Arizona, only there are electricity blackouts every
twelve minutes. The one real problem I have visiting India
is that when I leave, I always feel like I forgot my intestines.
We have a new man in accounting, Bill. The toughest part
of his job has been figuring out how to bury my duty-free
cognac purchases. Our CFO Ann, has had a fair number of beans
to count this year, thanks to you. She thinks JGA may have
finally figured out the secret to making money selling software
- it's all luck.
As far as new products are concerned, we have a few irons
in the fire:
1. Model-based temperature control where the models are Cameron
Diaz, Britney Spears and my own favorite - Madonna.
2. An APC-based digital data generator that automatically
provides complete documentation that no process or equipment
problem was ever your fault. (OEMs are showing major interest
in this product.)
As of this writing, the outcome of the presidential election
in the U.S. is still undecided, and I want to put in my two-cents
because it involves an issue we at JGA claim to know a little
something about - data capture. In my opinion, the vote-counting
fiasco in Florida underscores one of the classic axioms of
data analysis: "garbage in - garbage out." Florida has about
as good a chance of correctly determining voter preference
by tossing a coin as by counting ballots. They badly need
to upgrade the resolution of their "data capture systems"
if they expect to accurately determine voter preference when
the difference is less than a percent. Their current system
just ain't up to the job.And by the way, is your data capture
system up to its job? Why don't you all come talk to us? Feel
free to invite Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris too.
And I can't resist one last word about Y2K. Was it all hype,
or what? As a dedicated software professional with a keen
sense of our industry's pulse, it is my opinion that it wasn't
all hype - it was only about 95 percent hype.
Have a good holiday, keep in touch, and drive carefully
(this especially applies to my friends in Taiwan, and India.)
Best regards,
Jon Goldman, Jon Goldman Associates, 2237 N. Batavia St.,
Orange CA 92865-3105 USA. Tel: 714-283-5889; Fax: 714-283-2884;
e-mail:Jon@JGA-Inc.com.
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