Lot's of companies were there...
Alex B. & John H. spoke but no one noticed/cared?
Conference Gave Valuable Insights Into Tech Cos.
02/27/98
Federal Filings Newswires
(Copyright (c) 1998, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)
ISSUER: FEDERAL FILINGS BUSINESS NEWS
SYMBOL: X.FFI
WASHINGTON (FFBN) -- The four-day BancAmerica Robertson
Stephens Technology ' 98 Conference held this week provided investors
with a wealth of insights into dozens of companies in the technology
industry through presentations by executives of the firms.
Federal Filings Business News covered 22 of the presentations
over the four days of the conference and also provided coverage of
President Clinton's address to the conference, at which he announced his
support for a moratorium on taxes for Internet commerce.
Listed below are summaries of several companies' presentations
that seemed to have an effect on the market, followed by a full listing
of the other presentations covered during the week.
Monday February 23
CAMBRIDGE TECHNOLOGY PARTNERS INC. (CATP)
Cambridge expects to almost double its number of international
locations to 84 from 45 by the year 2000 in an effort to increase its
international revenues to 50% of total revenues from the current 34%.
President and CEO James Simms pointed out that the firm has a solid
balance sheet with no debt. Cambridge shares ended the day up 4.2% to
46 1/8.
Tuesday February 24
XYLAN CORP. (XYLN)
In one of the most optimistic presentations, Xylan CFO Dale
Bartos said the company has had "very, very strong shipment levels in
the first six or seven weeks of the first quarter." In addition, its
second- largest customer, Alcatel Alsthom, may be in a position to
increase orders since its inventory is at a very low point. Xylan hopes
to cut selling expenses by about a point in each quarter of 1998.
Selling and marketing expenses totaled 28.2% of revenues in the fourth
quarter of 1997 and 28.6% for the year as a whole. By the end of
trading on Wednesday, Xylan shares had gained 10.6% to 26 1/8.
Wednesday February 25
JABIL CIRCUIT INC. (JBIL)
CFO Chris Lewis sees Jabil's customer base expanding due to
additional capacity at its new facilities in Glasgow, Scotland and
Guadalajara, Mexico, and an additional plant in Malaysia. The new
facilities give the firm enough potential capacity to double its run
rate. As of yesterday's close, Jabil jumped 16.7% to 53 13/16 from
Wednesday's opening.
Thursday February 26
FLEXTRONICS INTERNATIONAL LTD. (FLEXF)
The minimal impact Flextronics felt from the Asian financial
crisis in the December quarter is now behind it, according to CFO Bob
Dykes. Noting that the firm's stock price recently suffered over Asian
concerns, Dykes said investors didn't realize "that a third of our
production is in Asia, but only 6% of our revenues come from there."
The firm's shares increased 7.3% to 47 7/8 yesterday.
PLEXUS CORP. (PLXS)
CFO Tom Sabol said gross margins are not expected to shrink as
Plexus expands, and should stay at 12.5% over the next 12 months. The
company focuses on the high end of the market and says it has the
engineering talent to keep up the margin. Plexus's stock rose 6.5%
Thursday to 21 1/2.
The following is a brief summary of the other presentations
covered during the week.
Monday February 23
MICROSOFT CORP. (MSFT)
Chief operating officer Robert Herbold said Microsoft is having
a very good year with its Office '97 product, which just passed the
benchmark of over 20 million copies sold. Herbold also said WebTV now
has over 250,000 subscribers and the Windows CE operating system has
over 5,000 units sold.
SUMMIT DESIGN INC. (SMMT)
President and chief executive officer Larry Gerhard highlighted
the fact that 60% to 70% of the company's sales come from existing
customers. Summit has sold more than 3,100 seats of its visual HDL
(hardware description language) product and 4,100 seats of its VirSim
product to date. The firm has a greater than 41% share of the high-
level design automation market, according to Dataquest.
MICRON TECHNOLOGY INC. (MU)
Micron is beginning to be able to better negotiate with
semiconductor memory manufacturers to buy capacity at reduced prices
according to vice president for corporate affairs Kipp Bedard. South
Korean and Japanese companies, which make up a large part of the
semiconductor memory industry, have been hampered by the Asian financial
crisis. Micron is also seeing increased demand for its newer 64
megabyte D-Ram and has dramatically stepped up production in the last
three to four weeks.
QUANTUM CORP. (QNTM)
Chief financial officer Rick Clemmer gave an upbeat view of the
desktop drive market, saying it is at the bottom of the supply-demand
cycle and should rise to meet the level of personal computer demand.
"with 2% growth in desktop drives and PC growth in the mid-teens, it is
clear we will catch up," Clemmer predicted. Quantum will increase its
marketing efforts for its new DLT (digital linear tape) products, which
the company expects to show a 30% to 40% growth rate moving forward.
Tuesday February 24
ANADIGICS INC. (ANAD)
The leading supplier of gallium arsenide integrated circuits
(GaAs ICs) expects the chips to see more use in cellular phones and
manufacturers move to smaller three volt batteries for a power source.
President and CEO Ronald Rosenzweig said Anadigics is increasing the
advantages of gallium arsenide over silicon chips, which are currently
used in 50% to 60% of cell phones. Rosenzweig believes the GaAs ICs
will lead toward great revenue growth in the end of 1998 and in 1999.
In addition to cell phones, cable modems were also mentioned as a growth
area for GaAs ICs.
ELECTRONICS FOR IMAGING INC. (EFII)
Vice president for strategic relations Eric Saltzman blamed
slow Japanese sales for the firm's disappointing fourth quarter
earnings. In addition, the new Fiery ZX color server was not shipped as
expected in the fourth quarter. The product will be shipped in the near
future.
YAHOO! INC. (YHOO)
CFO Gary Valenzuela said the firm is aiming for an operating
profit of 16% to 20% by the end of this year. The firm had a pre-charge
operating loss of $3.5 million on $67.4 million in revenues in 1997, but
had an operating profit margin of 5.0% in the fourth quarter on $25.1
million in revenues.
COMPUTER PRODUCTS INC. (CPRD)
The possible devaluation of the Chinese yuan will be a
significant advantage for Computer Products according to chairman and
CEO Joseph O'Donnell. The firm employs 3,000 of its 65,000 workers in
China and has been manufacturing there for 12 years.
BEA SYSTEMS INC. (BEAS)
BEA's new Iceberg object-based software product will be
released in the summer. Interest in the beta version of the product has
been very strong according to CEO Steve Brown, who was reluctant to give
revenue expectations for the product. "We're very conservative about
estimating revenue," Brown told FFBN. "We feel object change (moving
toward object oriented software) will be evolutionary rather than
revolutionary."
Wednesday February 25
ADFLEX SOLUTIONS INC. (AFLX)
Conditions in the hard disk drive industry are not expected to
improve until the second half of 1998 according to Adflex chairman and
CEO Rolando Esteverena. Sales to the hard disk drive industry accounted
for 62% of the firm's revenues in 1996. Another of Adflex's markets,
communications equipment manufacturers, is seeing strong bookings and
expectations in the first half of 1998, but Esteverena was not ready to
commit to the second half of the year.
MERCURY INTERACTIVE CORP. (MERQ)
Chairman Aryeh Finegold said the Year 2000 computer problem is
presenting his company with an opportunity to develop new customer
relationships. The strategic reason Mercury is in the Year 2000 market
is that it is an excellent door opener for information technology
customers, according to Finegold. Year 2000 testing grew from 7% of
(MORE) FEDERAL FILINGS-DOW JONES NEWS 02-27-98
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