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

To: EPS who wrote (28292)	9/27/1999 12:47:00 PM
From: Frederick Smart	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42771

Cheap Shots.... >>I also take issue with you denigrating Clinton. Just keep politics out this please. I thought that you were above little dirty cheap shots like that with all your grandiose verbose about the new values <ggggg>>> New Values? On the contrary, values are what drive everything. There are no "new values", only ones which somehow get pushed aside at time for expediency. As for Clinton, he's pretty defined a "new" set of values or standard for the world to lower itself to. If "everyone does" it works for him, God help us all. And I don't mean to judge Clinton. His actions provide more than adequate evidence for anyone to "feel" out how much core values relating to truth really mean for the man. I'm just another individual, but that doesn't mean I won't exercise my power of "good judgement" when I "see" and "feel" someone, somewhere, sometime is taking advantage of the system and using our time and trust. Same thing applies to Microsoft. They've been very successful according to most standards of worldly success. But if they have achieved this success by taking advantage of their position in ways which take energy rather than give energy, their model will at some point collapse for there is a fixed-pie limit to this approach. Growth gets predicated on taking more and more energy out of the system through a strategy of limiting and restricting others. I will give them credit for opening up their APIs, providing cheap development apps, and making marketing mincemeat out of everyone else. But this phase is passing. We are onto new platforms which are harder to control and contain. Microsoft is being forced to invest in more and more new players and they are gradually losing their focus. Now back to the fraud issue: The following is from..... billparish.com >>During the same quarter ended 3/31/99 Microsoft also sold put contracts on their own stock for $400 million, basically betting that the stock will not decline. They need not worry because they are allowed to ?cook the books.? Of Microsoft?s significant cash balance, it is also a financial fact that 79 percent of that cash did not originate from product sales but rather from tax benefits associated with the exercise of stock options and the sale of put contracts on its own stock. Greg Maffei, CFO, astonished me when he printed a rebuttal to Gretchen Morgenson?s NY Times story titled ?Financial Engineering 1.0.? In the rebuttal he noted ?Our put warrants have a net share settle option that allows the company to settle any obligation by issuing new shares, rather than paying out cash.? Translated that means, we can just issue more paper.>> Ok, so what's going to happen if there IS an investigation and the SEC places restrictions on their put option strategy. How is Microsoft going to settle all this paper? Please do your own research Victor. I have been following Microsoft's put selling roll for years. Parrish's research simply allowed me to put the two together. I sent Parrish an email right after I read his piece. He called me back and was very interested in my theory. The put option selling strategy is a crucial piece to this puzzle. >>A fan of MSFT I am NOT but to make accusations without any hard evidence to back it up is blowing gas. I think you do that very well.>> I, too, am not a fan, but your response to date simply "blows gas" at a lower level. If you're going to get down and dirty to pop all the "gas" in this thing, at least find and use more than just a crowbar. Peace. GO!!