Can stock price match company's high hopes?

• Position: Tangram Enterprise Solutions Inc

The title of Chris Jesse's latest book, A Journey Through Oz, is fitting, given cynical investors might think he's prancing down a yellow brick road to his own land of fantasy.

The CEO of Cary-based software maker Tangram Enterprise Solutions Inc. (TESI-NASDAQ) hiked spending 53% in 1997, boosting R&D and sales efforts, leasing more space in upscale Regency Park and adding 50 employees. He plans to hire 50 more by year-end to bring the work force to 200. All the while, the stock has sunk from $17.88 in 1996 to $5 in late July, and Tangram lost money in all but one quarter in 1996 and 1997.

So does the wizard have a secret for long-term profits? He has a vision anyway, that Tangram can dominate a new software niche analysts estimate at $2 billion a year.

Fact or fantasy? Well, this is technology, and millions have been made on visions far less grand. His optimism and spending center on Asset Insight, a computer-asset-tracking program Tangram launched in mid-1996. It's already proving popular, so investors could catch the upswing on a cheap, little-known stock. But buyer beware - technology gains can vanish at the slightest hint the magic is wearing off.

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