Joe, you and I obviously have a difference of opinion on a variety of fronts. Your attitude appears most eloquently in your own words:
If you own some NOVL, that's good. If you want to trash NOVL,
Take a hike to another board. _UNLESS_ you can trash it with
some _FACTS_ and NOT rhetoric
I didn't set out to trash NOVL, but to respond to some trash flung at SUNW and HWP. I do think it is pure hype to suggest that either SUNW or HWP needs or wants NOVL as an acquisition. What _FACTS_ do you have to the contrary?
My point wrt AAPL is that by any _FACTUAL_ measure, such as sales/sh, cash flow, or book value, AAPL (for which SUNW has shown it would not pay even mid-20's) far exceeds NOVL, so that Roger's $28/sh for NOVL is out of the ballpark.
The FACTS*: NOVL AAPL
*as reported by Value Line
1995 sales/sh: 5.49 89.99
1995 cash flow/sh 1.16 4.37
1995 book/sh 5.22 23.60
The jury is still out on whether AAPL is dead. NOVL has also had its problems. Seldom in history, I think, has anyone lost as much money on an acquisition as did NOVL on WP.
Re technology: Unfortunately, choice of O/S sometimes takes on quasi-religious overtones, and I don't want to get into that. I hope you will concede, however, that Solaris is a recognized networking solution with an installed base of approximately 2 million users and runs on the PC platform (and others). Sun has thus demonstrated its ability to deliver -- it doesn't need Novell's help. I don't have Novell's numbers handy -- do you?
Re $100/sh: I don't know whether SUNW will make it (hadn't even heard that was a goal until now), but picking up NOVL's $1.5B in annual sales (SUNW's '95 sales were about $7B) while suffering the share dilution Roger proposes, would be a giant step backwards. SUNW's shares have RISEN about $12 so far this year, or only a bit less than NOVL's shares closed at on Friday. To suggest a 1:2 ratio is ludicrous.
Since 1/1/95, HWP's shares have gone from about $50 to over $100 while NOVL's have dropped -- who has the better strategy?
Indeed, let's compare notes in 8 months.
Nothing you've said has humbled me, but I will try to cite more facts in the future. |
