To Bill: I do understand that there must have been some intended objective of management in issuing the dividends. I`m just thinking that that purpose may have been met via the two dividends issued. If not, how many times will they have to do this to meet their objective, and how many shares could they have bought back with that money (and how much would the PPS have risen as a result of buying back)? I can certainly live with the dividends to date (like I have a choice! LOL), especially considering there must have been a ``higher purpose``.

To biomedman: Though I understand where you`re coming from (buy back at a lower PPS would mean that many more shares bought back), I`m thinking it`s never too late. Every share bought back adds value to the remaining shares. I look at it this way: if they keep issuing larger and larger dividends as time goes by, the PPS will continue to rise to a limited degree (and quite possibly fall back, since after the dividend is issued, the money`s gone and the value is net unchanged), the cost of buy back may continue to increase. So if they are going to follow through on their suggestion of a buy back program, sooner is better.

Now to combine the thoughts above, there must have been a purpose to the dividends which hopefully has been met. We`ve seen the results, and IMO the result on our PPS was nada - the PPS went up more based on settlements, not dividends. If the purpose/objective has not been met, how many dividends will it take and, again, how many shares could have been bought back with that money (and how much of a SUSTAINED appreciation in PPS could have been realized)?

And to someone who suggested that my opinion here may be influenced by the number of shares I own, that may very well be the case. I only hold 177.5k shares. Perhaps if I held ten times that many, I`d feel different, basking in the dividend glory. However, I think my interest in sustained added value would still apply regardless of number of shares owned. Perhaps there is the thought that, if I had say a million+ shares, I could buy more shares at a continue low PPS via dividend re-investment. But the result would be just a bigger dividend receieved, with only a relatively minor increase in share value.

Bottom line for me is increase the value of my shares (regardless of how many). It`s a win-win IMO.

And again, IMO, don`t use the future moneys for acquisitions/buy-outs. That IMO would just introduce risk. As it stands, the risk level is ever-diminishing, increasing the probably of ever-increasing reward.

Thanks to all for the consideration. And I only make these opines and suggestions with the (reasonable) expectation of more and much larger settlements going into the future. IMO, we`ve only seen the extreme tip of the iceberg.

SGE (in and around PTSC since `97)

PS: To the person who made suggestions re: SHBoom and Fourth; SHBoom was originally optimized for C/C++, but was later discovered to run Fourth very efficiently, and to run JAVA at native speeds. That`s per the (old) PTSC site, and an article titled ``JAVA Chip Avaialable - NOW!`` published on EarthWeb (the Sun Mico designated site for all things JAVA) on 4/9/99 which was featured on PTSC`s home page for over six months. I should KNOW, I wrote it.