 
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
              
|
Thursday, December 07, 2000 By David Radin
Lernout & Hauspie says it has more than 1,750 language and technology experts worldwide as part of its speech recognition technology company. Perhaps it should have considered adding a few extra mathematicians. Then it might still be a viable working concern. Instead, the company recently announced that it was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
With all the technology companies failing in recent months, most of us probably would have missed the announcement ... but for a very large detail. It lost $100 million. Not in the P&L sense. The company just misplaced the cash.
At one time the company was a technology high-flier. During the past year alone, it was named by Time as one of Europe's hottest tech companies, put together deals with Microsoft, America Online and Unisys, and acquired Dragon Systems -- one of the company's biggest competitors.
Then, in midyear, the Wall Street Journal published claims that L&H's Korean subsidiary misstated revenue -- claims that the company rebutted. An SEC investigation followed, leading recently to resignations of several board members (including one of the founders) and the Chapter 11 filing. Now the company finally concedes that $100 million are missing from the balance sheet -- of that same Korean subsidiary.
Investors currently are skittish about investing in high-tech companies, much of it because they don't believe the business plans developed by company executives. (Frankly, in many cases, I don't blame them for the skepticism.) Major inaccuracies such as the one at L&H will only add fuel to the fire. And in this case, it came from supposedly savvy executives -- not by unseasoned Internet entrepreneurs.
If I was asked where the company should look for the $100 million, I'd probably suggest on a beach in Tahiti -- or by following that fleet of Lamborghinis tooling down the coast in Cannes. (After all, L&H is based in Belgium.) If you have any better ideas, let me know (http://www.insiderradio.com/internetinsider/stepup.html).
Q: You and other Internet gurus often refer to "ping." What is ping? And how do I use it?
A:Ping is a utility that allows you to find out whether you have a connection to a particular resource on the Net. Ping is particularly useful when you're having trouble reaching a Web site or mail server on the Net.
Ping works the same way sonar does. When you invoke a ping command, your system sends a few packets of data to the server you're testing. If it reaches the other side, it will come back telling you it was successful. It also will tell you how many of the packets made it back successfully (in case not every packet reached the destination), as well as the approximate time of each round trip, in milliseconds. If the packets cannot reach the other side, ping will give you an error message.
First, make sure that you have dialed into the Internet. Then open the Command Prompt by clicking on the [Start] button, then [Programs]. Find the MS-DOS icon, which is typically labeled [MS-DOS Prompt] and is usually found as soon as you have selected [Programs].
Let's say that you have dialed into Nauticom as your local ISP and want to reach www.post-gazette.com. When your new window appears, type "ping www.post-gazette.com." Press [Enter], and wait a moment for your results.
If you get an error message, such as "unknown host," you have not been able to contact the server, in which case you'll want to "ping www.nauticom.net" to find out whether the problem is between you and your connecting point. If this ping is successful, the problem is between the ISP and the distant server. If it also produces an error message, your problem is between you and your ISP. The same process will work with any ISP or any destination server on the Internet. In a future column, I'll show you how you can trace the route of your data so you can find out exactly where the problem is.
David Radin is host of the nationally syndicated radio show "Internet Insider,"a local version of which is aired on KDKA AM 1020 at noon Saturdays. You can ask him a computer or Internet question by following the instructions at www.post-gazette.com/interact, where you also can find an archive of his previous Q&A columns.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
