RE: Ohhh, my gosh… Golly gee wizz…Paugh, I've ignored you for the longest time because your posts are just plain bizarre. I really can't figure out your angle. I'm coming to the conclusion that you are some "new wave" basher who tries to slip in misinformation wherever possible to stir up the poop.
First of all, I love how you tried to interpret Kevin Green's feelings from the call - how the heck do you know what he is thinking? Second, if you have done any DD - which we all know you have never done any DD - you would know that Kevin Lo is no longer with Lightyear. Any trading out of Lightyear has been coming from one of their moron traders who has probably been using some aliases on this board (perhaps you are one of his aliases). Next, you say that Expedia will renew the contract "on their own terms". Now this is something that VRX has done a poor job of conveying to shareholders, so maybe there are some misinterpretations - here's something that some people don't realize ... VRX is in the drivers seat!!! Expedia is playing hardball hoping that VRX will give in; however, what Expedia is learning is that VRX can survive without them. Expedia has some big decisions to make in the near future. Paugh, if you really think that Expedia can go off on their own and copy the VRX model, then you really have no idea what is going on in the studios of VRX. If what you say were actually true, Expedia would have been gone long time ago. Expedia may own their content to date, but without VRX, Expedia has nobody to host the content, thus making it useless to them. Your comment that Expedia can do the work in house for a fraction of what they pay VRX is ludicrous. If this was the case, Expedia wouldn't even be talking to VRX at this point. Also, if it were that easy, all the other intermediairies would be doing their own in house operations.
So where does all this take us now ... VRX has a new initiative that doesn't need to include Expedia. Expedia has to sit on the sidelines and watch their competition gain access to something that was exclusive to Expedia. If I were an executive at Expedia, I sure wouldn't want my competition to have access to an exclusive product I was using! Without Expedia, I would agree that the first couple quarters might be slow in revenue - but I am also betting that Expedia is not going to let VRX go off on their own for very long.
Here is something else to think about - hypothetically speaking ... if Expedia miraculously came up with the VRX model on their own and was able to do everything in house (and I have already said this will never happen), it still leaves VRX out there to provide Expedia's competition with the same or better service as Expedia. So here's the question - why would Expedia bother spending time, money, and resources to copy something that already exists if they can purchase the product on the market right now and prevent their competition from gaining access to the product that may help increase their market share in Expedia's business? In other words, it makes no sense for Expedia to re-create the model that already exists.