Victor - re: I do not think it justifies all your views
LOL!! I'm not sure ANY of my views are justified, let alone all of them...
I was out on the west coast for part of last week and had dinner with an old friend who has also invested in tech stocks for many years. He pointed out that part of my success with CPQ despite its abysmal stock performance is simply because I live in Houston, pay a lot more attention to CPQ than to my other investments, and that similar attention to INTC, ORCL, SUNW or any of a number of other investments would likely have provided equal or better return with a lot less risk... he is probably right.
re: Go With Throttle Up references to them as "little people" "fools" "maggotts".
I found those comments - as well as GWTU's relentless cheerleading - to be a little offensive. When I started serious investing in the early 80's, a hundred shares of stock was a lot for me. When I bought MSFT just after it went public, the choice was between a few hundred shares of MSFT and my family's annual 1-week vacation, and my wife was not thrilled at the prospect of a car trip to Florida instead of a Ski vacation. In retrospect that was a good investment, but if I had seen that stock drop to half its value in the months after the purchase, I would have had some explaining to do.
I think I have a pretty broad tolerance for opposing points of view, and the reason that I continue to read Jack, El and others despite what I regard as repetition without additional content in many cases, is that they do provide a check to my natural optimism and also some humor...
But re: I say again that if the energy expended in attacking him and congratulating management was spent lobbbying for shareholders interest then the energy might be better spent.
I have stated my reservations about current management execution several times - headcount and other cost reductions seem to be going too slowly, the services business which was the stated reason for the DEC purchase looks weak, and simplification of the many product lines, especially the money-losing commercial desktop line, does not seem to me to be a monumental task. CPQ still does not have a clear marketing message.
But in general, I am excited by the changes I see happening at CPQ, the attitude displayed by management and employees, and I guess I have bought in on the "vision" which I think is better and more likely to succeed than that of any of the major players, and I don't think that any additional lobbying for shareholder interest is required.
And although I do agree that Capellas has shown a few signs of inexperience, he also has shown vision, drive and a grasp of the business that I do not see in the essentially PR-oriented stunts of Carly Fiorina, the predictable ho-hum moves of Michael Dell, the purely financial manipulations of Gerstner, or the somewhat desperate moves of GTW recently.
Many on the thread have commented on the bonus and compensation that Capellas received. The most recent issue of Forbes includes an article on the astronomical compensation currently being offered to lure CEOs. The top 10 by compensation in 1999 got more than $100M. Carly's $80M package barely got her an honorable mention. By comparison, the package offered to Capellas is less than that offered to CEOs of unproven startups in today's overheated market. I think that the discussions on that topic are way off base. |
