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accounts as Norwest. Indeed, some providers processed as many as
five times more. Mr. Teixeira found that Norwest's development of
the Trust Payment system did not result in any new or unique
functions or technology to the industry, and that commercially
available software offered comparable functionality. He concluded
that the technologies used in developing the system were well
established in the banking industry and were familiar to Norwest
personnel.
We agree with respondent that the development of the Trust
Payment system does not constitute qualified research. Although
technical risks arose in the development process, those risks were
limited and did not involve substantial uncertainty that Norwest's
investment could be recovered within a reasonable period of time.
The technical risks were clearly solvable: the only issue to
Norwest was whether they could be solved in time so as to maintain
or advance Norwest's competitive standing in the trust service
provider industry. Indeed, Dr. McDermott admitted this when he
reported:
The key point to repeat here is that the risk to Norwest
was that a project would be delayed because of technical
uncertainties. Even if a project could clearly be done
eventually, the results might be useless if they came too
late. The cost to Norwest would be wasted development
effort, inefficiency in using old solutions, and
backwardness with respect to their competitors. It seems
clear that in the case of * * * [the Trust Payment
system] these risks were real, and actually materialized,
although not to the extent that the project failed
altogether.
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