Mr. P$nk initiates WEBX with rating of t3/f.
WEBX research by Mr. P$nk's proprietary analytical team
WEBEX
· San Jose, Ca. based Webex stock (symbol WEBX) has shot up 35% in the last few trading sessions as a volley of bullish wall street propaganda has highlighted the small videoconferencing company’s prospects (in light of the recent NY city bombings), propelling its market capitalization to $900 million (US). Not bad for a company, which will likely show a loss of .11/share in the current quarter, burn roughly 7 million dollars on 20.4 million in estimated sales.
· Microsoft, a small company out of Redmond WA, has a product called NetMeeting which looks almost exactly the same as the WEBEX product. The NetMeeting product is free and bundled with the Windows operating system. Microsoft has recently upgraded the product so that it is more user friendly. Although it is unclear as to the new product’s (NetMeeting) ability to host multiple users simultaneously, it is possible with the earlier version to purchase a collaboration server to function as a central meeting place. This seems to be the same approach Webex has taken for their hosted version.
· In an interview with CNBC 09/19/2001 Webex CEO, Iyar said the company was in a quiet period and could not comment on guidance. The CFO, Craig Klosterman, E-mailed company guidance on 09/19/01 to our field operatives, which backed an EPS loss of $.11 for Q3 2001. On 09/19/01 the CFO e-mailed the aforementioned field operatives, CAPEX guidance for Q3 and Q4 2001. It seems the company would rather conveniently impose a quite period instead of reporting on national television it’s expected losses.
· BAAN software uses the Microsoft product in spite of, John Baan owning 7.3 million shares of WEBX stock through Vanenburg Capital management. Baan recently filed to offer 465,000 shares of stock along with other participants who purchased stock in a discount pipe 5 months ago (see 424b3). 2 million shares were registered for sale with no proceeds to the company on 09/10/01.
· In conversations with the CFO of competitors Centa (CTRX), and CFO of Placeware software (see company S1 filing), both companies offer similar products which are claimed to offer better scalability and reliability than the WEBEX product. WEBEX only averages 12 ports or seats sold per customer where competitors are offering products which allow corporations to launch virtual trade shows, VAR training, etc of up to 2500 simultaneous users. It seems WEBEX is stuck in the middle with a free product competing with it at the low end, and robust competition at the high end.
The Following are Comment’s on Microsoft’s free product:
· NetMeeting also can place calls to H.323 multipoint conferencing units (MCUs) and participate in multipoint audio/video conferences.
· You can place NetMeeting calls to multiple users.
· Any person in a meeting can share a program with the other participants.
· When you use the program-sharing feature, other people can see the program. When you allow control, other people can both see and use the program.
· Using this version of NetMeeting, you can share programs with large numbers of users. However, if a computer running NetMeeting 2.0 is in the conference, and more than three users are sharing, that computer will not be able to share a program. The total number of people who can successfully participate in your meeting depends on available network bandwidth and the speed of the participants' computers.
All statements above are opinion and intended for entertainment purposes. Not a puchase or sell recommendation. Mr. P$nk may be long or short and reverse postion at any time. He is deranged.
Mr. P$nk |
