Hello Gus, Joe....
Gus, I was reading over the post you directed at me yesterday re:Ford, GM, Chrysler standardizing on NW 4.1. The article was written by Novell and a direct attack on MSFT which is claiming that GM was moving to NT (although my post that initiated your response was not written by MSFT but a different source).
MSFT had made a claim earlier in the year that Chevron had moved from NW 3.x to NT. Bob Frankenburg during Brainshare told all us attendees that he approached Chevron directly who in turn told him this was not the case and that Chevron had simply bought a few licenses of NT for application servers. MSFT clearly used this to their advantage as I am sure they are doing once again....with GM and God knows how many other companies.
Bob made it clear that if MSFT continued the same tactics, that NOVL would not stand back but would 'fight' back and I think this is what NOVL is doing by issuing the release you posted.
It's marketing by MSFT but how much impact this will have over the next 12 - 18 months is the key question ? Will these companies that install NT be content with NT as a file and print server once their staff become familiar with this O/S ?
If you look at MSFT earnings, they are increasing at the rate of 33% and it is hard to break down just how much of the earnings is due to NTS (ignoring for a moment MSFT claims in their annual report).
Novell's sales data as measured in dollars (and not volume) will be the key that cracks this puzzle. Given that the price of NW software has not dropped in the last four months (at least here in Canada and I assume the U.S), sales figures ($) should be increasing and not decreasing if indeed these companies are migrating from NW 3.x to NW 4.x whilst installing NT on the application front. Net income may be mis-leading this year because of extraodinary items.
At this moment, it is war between the two giants and who is telling the truth and who hyped it up...we will see by the first quarter of next year. To date, I am convinced that large shops are sitting on NW 3.x (installing NW 4.1 here and there) but installing NT in a big way.
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Jim, I read these articles to find the strong and weak points of the two O/S's. It helps me undersatnd which package to recommend for a site (we are a highly decentralized shop so the requirements vary from one site to another) without having to do the technical evaluation in detail. As you can see, I have to be open minded to both O/S's. One reason why I owned call options in both companies (sold MSFT recently but holding NOVL).
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Still predicting that NOVL will strike $17 - $19 range by this fall
regardless of the sales data. What happens after will be based strictly on fundamentals. I'll be watching.
Also sold my position in EMC July 20 calls at 2 15/16 yesterday and moved into the July 22 1/2 calls. EMC is approaching it 52-week high of $27 + change reached in July of last year.
Bought ODP (Office Depot) call options this morning after seeing a hugh volume in the January 25 calls yesterday (10,025 contracts) and January 22 1/2 calls (2,500 contracts). 52-week high is just over $32 and low around $16. This stock is up again today on very heavy volume
of 2 million shares in last 1 1/2 hour.
Sales of Personal Computers are up and along with this, one has to buy some furniture...or is there something else driving this stock ?.
Happy trading !!
V.K |
