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Technology Stocks : Network Associates (NET) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Chuzzlewit who wrote (5598)	7/28/1999 7:49:00 PM
From: Conan	Respond to of 6021

Chuz: I think what I described is much less than massive fraud. Let's face the truth: managers have a tremendous amount of discretion in how they report results. Companies can be aggressive or conservative on reserves, revenue recognition, and many other measures that build the income statements and balance sheets of company performance. You have made many statements in the past on this board about how what is really important is the company performance; not the accounting. I agree with you completely. What I described in my last post is my interpretation of what NETA management is doing to portray company performance in the best possible light to benefit shareholders. I agree that decreasing deferred revenues and questionable one time charges are disturbing. I also agree that the company is not really solving the inventory issue and is placing the company in jeopardy of another huge "surprise" to address future inventory issues. We should be asking management to describe what market share they have in the markets they compete in and where they see the new growth and profitability coming from. If security is where they will grow, what products will that growth come from? Firewalls? Intrusion detection? Anti-virus? Where? One analyst asked if NETA was losing share in the anti-virus space. Larson's "no, I don't think so" answer wasn't as confident as I would have expected. I am concerned that they are losing share here. I'm also concerned that Check Point is running away with the firewall market as NETA and Axent fade in significance there. Finally, I interpreted the "security suite" deals that Larson bragged about as essentially Anti-virus deals with free intrusion detection and a small firewall piece. So I am concerned about the suite strategy. Conan