Thanks for the welcome Mike. I found my way over here at the end of June basically on the premise that I hoped paying a subscription fee to discuss stocks would weed out a certain level of unfocused chatter ("Do you think such and such a stock is a gorilla?) that we all know about on message boards. This, and the fact that 'The Motley Fool' Gorilla Game message board is frequented with a grand total of only a few posts per month. Hence, I'm here.
Yes, I know the Siebel slot of number one in "America's Fastest Growing Companies" might be overblown, but I sometimes enjoy the excess that America itself likes to cheer over and over again. My part as a cheerleader gets tempered by living in Europe and constantly hearing the Europeans views. Suffice it to say, America's optimistic outlook is often in dire contrast to the outlook on this side of the pond. Therefore, I keep my red, white and blue pompoms in the trunk of my car. I sometimes forget to smile over here - which saddens me. I just returned from a 7 week vacation in the states to visit family and friends - as well as practice smiling again. That's an entirely different thread, so I will let it rest. I just wanted to somehow tie it in with the importance of avoiding some of the optimistic 'excess' in the market and concentrate on gorilla type investing (which of course is no secret and lends itself to excess at times as well), but I'm too jet-lagged to put all of the pieces together. After this post, I will lurk some more - as I should be doing now - and try to find my away around SI to see what is going on and who is saying what.
As we had discussed a few months ago the possibility that there was and will be so much growth for the front office sector, it was too early to really count out all of the players and say that only Siebel was going to be making money - even if the 'valley' had declared them the gorilla as Geoff Moore said. As I had stated - that was the 'valley talk' and not the customer speak. Hence, with the customer usually getting what they want, keying in on what the customer is 'talking about' seems paramount. I already own Siebel and Oracle, but for some reason haven't taken any positions beyond that. I wait, watch and wonder for the competing products - such as this mystery product from Oracle that is or isn't available in scale. We all know the Siebel/Ellison PR bloodbath, so I take much of it with a grain of salt. I don't pretend to be anything but an investor in terms of the confirmed gorillas and front office application companies, so I won't try and fudge any learned opinions. I'm not in contact with the front office customer. I have to rely on boards like this and other's reporting. Siebel is certainly in a position of admiration at the moment - so I remain invested. I do firmly believe that there is enough growth to fuel several companies for quite some time. Will they be Oracle, Siebel, SAP and others - or some I'm not even considering at the moment? I would be interested in seeing your list of players which you must have had over at AOL according to your posts here. Not being an AOL subscriber, I don't have access to it. I'll check the Siebel board here at SI as well.
Along the lines of the group thinking thread, yes - as a participant on the GG discussion listserve which Moore participates, I admit I fell pray to the guru following when Geoff stated several months ago that he didn't see the gorilla possibility for Qualcomm. That, so I thought, was good enough for me - lemming that I am. Thankfully, as the discourse unfolded, many thoughts challenged this and the discussion started to reveal some tidbits of wisdom that helped evolve how some were looking at Qualcomm. I still have only nibbled at the stock, but realize there is time - thankfully - to still participate long term (which is the most important part of the equation). I'm sure several from SI have been a part of that thread as well judging from the insight I have read here since signing up at the end of June.
Nevertheless, I look forward to reading, learning, asking questions and sharing when appropriate.
BB
|
