Jim and others:
Your breakdown for past revenues and prediction for future revenues
by product line was:
> 95-97 Revenue Breakdown and Thoughts for Q4 -97
>
> 95 95 95 96 96 96 96 97 97 97 97
> Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4
>
> Educ 41 41 ? 41 35 39 36 32 32 20 22*
> UNIX 22 20 ? 31 18 18 12 10 9 8 6*
> Netware 244 295 ? 230 65 216 243 253 169 39 132*
> Net Svs 77 93 ? 93 49 92 94 80 63 24 40*
> Totals 384 449 ? 395 167 365 385 375 273 91 200*
My take on the numbers is as follows:
In general, I assume that the channel was pretty well emptied out at
the end of '96 Q2, and stuffing began again right away. Also, the
channel was pretty well emptied out at the end of '97 Q3. Therefore,
the total revenues for the period from '96 Q3 thru '97 Q3 reflect
pretty well actual sales thru to customers.
Education: most revenues come through the channel. The big reduction
in '97 Q3 should be followed by a rebound in '97 Q4. Apparently, a lot
of stuffing took place in '96 Q3 & Q4, but later the shipments
balanced sales better, as the average sales over the five quarters is
$32. So, to be conservative, say $30 for Q4.
UNIX: licensing revenue only, will continue to decline. $6 is a nice
conservative estimate.
NetWare: Average over the last five quarters was $184. 3.x is
declining, 4.x sales are increasing. Moab has not "frozen" the market
that I can see, based on past experience people who buy IntranetWare I
now will get a free or almost free upgrade to IntranetWare II (Moab)
when it comes out. People with older products will have to pay more.
All the independent market-share analyses I've seen show INW to be
taking a larger share of a growing market, so $200 or more wouldn't be
out of the question. Still, to be conservative, say $155 for Q4.
Network Services: Average for the previous 5 quarters was $71. No
reason to think this will be lower. Partnerships with CA and IBM will
start boosting ManageWise revenues. GroupWise should continue to show
strong gains in sales. Hitting $90 for this category wouldn't
surprise me in the least. Still, to be conservative, say $80 for Q4
(same as for '97 Q1, when they seem to at least have slowed down the
stuffing).
Totals for the quarter: 30 + 6 + 155 + 80 = $271. This should be the
absolute minimum revenues. It is substantially below the average for
the previous five quarters, which was $298. It is also just about
meets the consensus earnings of .02. If they get around $298 they'd be
at breakeven for the year and would be well positioned to exceed the
current .30 estimate for next year.
All of this is just the humble opinion of an ignorant outsider.
Jerry |
