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Technology Stocks : CheckFree Holdings Corp. (CKFR), the next Dell, Intel? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Robert Gintel who wrote (10234)	9/17/1999 6:32:00 AM
From: zuma_rk	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 20297

Gotta love the stats on AOL… Well, made it home in one piece yesterday (although a 40 minute commute came in at about 2 ½ hours with all the rain)… Bought a few magazines to read on the way, and came across some wonderful, amazing statistics in the October issue of Wired magazine. Big profile on AOL, its management style, history and the like. Even though CF is in a very different business, we're still talking about the potential for huge growth in a monthly, subscriber-based model. AOL: Founded: May 24, 1985 (as Quantum Computer Services) IPO: March 19, 1992 (private company for 7 years, been public for 7 as well) Market Cap: at IPO, 1992: $61.8 million at 7/30/99: $1.3 Billion Revenues: f/y 1992: $26.6 million f/y 1999: $4.8 billion Net Income: f/y 1992: $3.5 million f/y 1999: $396 million Full-time employees: 1992: 97 Today: 12,500 (of which 7,000 are in customer service (!) AOL Subscribers: 1992: 181,000 August 1994: hit the 1 million mark Today: 17.6 million And of course, the biggie: Value today of a $100 DOLLAR (not share) investment made at the time of the IPO - $28,000 (hmmm, 280 times my money, not bad for 7 ½ years!). Let's extrapolate: $1,000 dollar investment = $280,000 today; $10,000 = $2.8 million; $100,000 = $28 million. A Bob Gintel-sized investment = ??????? <g>. Now the funny thing is – I've never liked AOL as an investment and never bought their stock. I used to use Prodigy & Compuserve (circa 1992), and always saw AOL as the black-sheep, dumbed-down version of these services. Could never see how AOL could make money (especially with all the blood that had already been spilled by Sears & IBM in trying to make Prodigy profitable), or how it would ever succeed with the advent of the Web. ‘Course my opinion didn't stop anyone else from making millions upon millions in AOL – but look at the advantages Checkfree has in comparison: --subscriber based business, like AOL (albeit for much less per month) --no real competition to speak of (certainly not cutthroat like Prodigy, Compuserve, MSN, Delphi, and all the others that tried) --CF doesn't have to bear the expense of sending out millions upon millions of those ubiquitous floppy or compact disks to folks who'll never sign up for the service. They can get banks, Yahoo, Excite, AOL, etc. to advertise for them for considerably less --CF is set up NOW to handle exponential growth, instead of being caught by surprise and being forced to be reactive --Bills are already sticky enough content – don't need to spend millions to continually develop technology to keep folks using the services (chat rooms, online photo albums, and the like) --In spite of Steve Case's massive success with AOL, until Pittman (from MTV) came on board, their management style has never been much to write home about. I would say that CF's management team has some significant advantages in terms of style and focus over AOL at a similar point in its life cycle. Anyway, there's more comparisons that can be drawn, but things look fairly dry outside this morning (funny how a massive storm leaves behind the most spectacular weather in its wake), and I've got to head in to the city. Just thought I'd post these stats for some early morning musing (it's worth picking up Wired to read the whole article – it's very interesting). Obviously, I'm not out to draw literal comparisons to AOL, but it doesn't hurt to dream, does it…? rk

To: Robert Gintel who wrote (10234)	9/17/1999 9:11:00 PM
From: TLindt	Respond to of 20297

>>>>I had to explain to a very confused President of Transaqua why suddenly approximately 75 people from Silicon Investors clicked onto our web site. Whataca them him... ROTFLMAO!

To: Robert Gintel who wrote (10234)	9/19/1999 8:47:00 PM
From: Benny Baga	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 20297

It seems Warren Buffett has taken a stake in First Data Corp.(FDC), can't help but wonder if his occasional Bridge Partner (Mr. Gates). suggested the stock ;-) (considering Mr. Buffett "doesn't invest in tech stocks). Can two play at that Game ;-) Benny

To: Robert Gintel who wrote (10234)	10/11/1999 11:03:00 AM
From: Ron S	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 20297

Kudos to our senior and heaviest member (40% of portfolio, Bob, not the girth, which I'm sure is well under control due to the diet started early this summer). According to this weekend's Barron's, the Gintel Fund was the 3Q performance leader in its category (Mid-Cap Value). And, you are on your way to the lead in the 4th Quarter, also, since CKFR closed September at only (I love that word in this reference) 41 1/8 and we are now roughly 5 points ahead of that ridiculously low price. Let the good times roll, and may finding value stocks among the techies be the future province of Gintel and all others on this thread.