Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Novell (NOVL) dirt cheap, good buy? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Paul Fiondella who wrote (27799)	8/20/1999 8:57:00 AM
From: Spartex	Respond to of 42771

<<Secondly the losses from the sale of SCO and Corel stock are coming to an end. I believe these losses were 9 million this quarter.>> In fact, if I heard CFO Raney correctly on CC, he said losses were $9 mil for SCO and $16 mil for Corel. Someone, please correct me if I heard otherwise. So this would be around 7 cents of losses against other gains (which they did have some, but I forget the amount). << Both Single Sign-on and caching appliance revenues will appear in Q4.>> Yes, this should help the next quarter tremendously, IMHO. One analyst was trying to tease this information out (rate of caching booking) of Novell during CC, but it wasn't available yet, but they said it should be within a month. Of course one caution going forward would be that the NW5 sales would be slowing due to Y2K lockdown, if and to what degree it happens. An unknown variable. =============== <<In light of the above this is a pretty good quarter. Their decisions appear to have been to lower the earnings numbers in this quarter rather than let the number blow out of proportion. >> Exactly! Just as I had mentioned 2 months ago using a quote from my father on how Novell was playing out earnings projections, Schmidt is trying to keep a damper on any blow out/upside at this point, so that the company can gauge the ramp-up of revenues/earnings in their new products being release in Q4, such as Single Sign-on, Caching and other unannounced products/deals, in addition to staying conservative so that they can buffer any slowdown in NW5 sales. Imagine reporting 17 cents this quarter, then 17 cents next quarter? They are playing this guidance very professionally. What some investors (individual/funds) fail to realize is that Eric et al. are trying to build a LONG RANGE business model which has taken a few years just to get on course. IMHO we're very EARLY as investor's of this company (2-3 inning to borrow the internet analysts analogy I hear on CNBC). We SEE what Eric is trying to do, and are way out there ahead of the WAVE. The WAVE will come crashing, I feel, within the next 6-9 months and thats when NOVL will make EXPLOSIVE moves upward. I'm thinking $35-40++. Then we'll be on THE FIELD with the BIG BOYS instead of what appears to be the minor leagues. The KEY all along has been patience. I guess the Warren Buffet prescription is the right medicine. See y'all later. Best regards, QuadK

To: Paul Fiondella who wrote (27799)	8/20/1999 9:16:00 AM
From: Spartex	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 42771

A question on Novell's new share buyback program. The old program of June 98 has retired almost 35 mil shares, spending around $450 mil. The new program "can" spend up to $500 mil dollars to buy back additional shares with the objective "to maintain a fairly constant weighted average share count....of 350 mil shares". Question: Is Novell's use of share repurchase for issuing stock options on par for what other high tech companies (e.g. MSFT, CSCO, AOL, etc) issue? Is it similar, less than or greater than? I'm curious, as it seems to me that spending $1 billion over 2 years to meet the needs of exercised options is an expensive objective, but I understand the value of keeping the share count even. Does MSFT just allow their outstanding share count to grow via issued options rather than repurchasing as Novell is doing? I know a few of you who post here have a better handle on this type of activity. My initial impression during the first June 1998 announcement was that Novell was also trying to reduce their number of outstanding shares from 350 mil to more like 320 range. TIA, QuadK +++++++++++++++ During the quarter, the company spent $57 million to repurchase 4 million shares of Novell common stock. On June 5, 1998, Novell's Board of Directors authorized the company to repurchase up to 10 percent, or approximately 35 million shares, of Novell common stock over 12 months. To date, the company has spent $448 million to purchase and retire 34,550,000 shares of common stock that were authorized for repurchase. Recent Board Actions On July 26, 1999, Novell's Board of Directors authorized up to $500 million for a share repurchase program through October 31, 2000, with the intent of offsetting the impact of exercised stock options and the effect of the Treasury method of accounting for outstanding stock options. The objective of the new plan is to maintain a fairly constant weighted average share count of approximately 350 million shares.