Q4 looks good.
Here's a posting from this thread from last month:
To: van wang (589 )
From: Robert Cordiano
Saturday, Sep 20 1997 1:58PM EST
Reply #594 of 638
...Nothing fundamentally has changed and revenue that was supposed to be realized this quarter has been moved to next quarter to be realized this quarter has been moved to next quarter. The Oxford contract is worth 38 mil. And only a smaller portion than expected was shipped this quarter.(This is the reason for the miss!!!) Not Europe as others have stated.
This could be viewed as a temporary push-out.
But they also had currency problems, just like IBM. From the earnings wire copy:
"The quarter was essentially in line with our expectations,"
McAdam said. "Historically, Sequent has had a pattern of very strong
second and fourth quarters punctuated by relatively soft first and
third quarters. During the quarter just ended, American Operations
actually performed better than we expected. However, that was offset
by seasonal weakness in Europe, which was worse than normal and was
aggravated by foreign currency issues. In the wake of this
disappointment, we're encouraged by several large European
opportunities in the strong fourth-quarter pipeline we've been
building across all geographies."
At least we know that all the R&D is finally starting to pay off in the form of higher NUMA-Q sales.
Among the most encouraging signs in the third quarter, McAdam
pointed to strong growth in sales of NUMA-Q systems. "For the third
consecutive quarter we saw a major increase in demand for NUMA-Q
2000, which accounted for three-fourths of product revenue in the
third quarter. With the delivery of Fibre Channel in late September,
NUMA-Q now has all the functionality and performance characteristics
necessary to challenge the traditional dominance of mainframes in the
data center.
Also, the small army of people that Sequent has hired in sales and service should encourage customers to feel comfortable with the company's products:
Just as important, Sequent's professional services
consultants are equipped with the data center knowledge and
experience necessary to carry that challenge through to the
completion of successful projects for our customers."
All in all, everything seems to be on track. Product transition pains seem to be coming to a close. Short term, share value might suffer, but it's easy to see that the mid and long term look very good.
My $.02.
Best Regards,
PD |
