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Technology Stocks : MicroStrategy Inc. (MSTR) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: sadsack who wrote (311)	9/30/1999 2:01:00 PM
From: Long John	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 717

MSTR is flying today. Does anyone expect more out of it short term? John

To: sadsack who wrote (311)	10/3/1999 11:05:00 PM
From: treetopflier	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 717

Sad part is that there are companies who believe this guy. Pick 20 fraudulent transactions out of a billion. Nice try Saylor. I'll stand by all my comments about you and your technology. Yes, you can ride a hype wave and there are underwriters who would love to see you keep running, just like SYBS. But you'll follow their trajectory. You aren't a database company and you don't have ANY unique technology. There is nothing in your product set that directly enables any of what you promise in your interview. You sell consulting. Once investors understand that 'business intelligence' is about as meaningful a term as 'data warehousing' you'll be relegated to the ranks of an Arbor or Red Brick. And Saylor, BI messiah that you seem to want to be, will not join the billion dollar club. If this wasn't a good short earlier, it sure as hell is starting to look like one now. I haven't been short since I rode it from the $30s to the $20s, but it is getting really tempting again at these levels. This has the makings of a 10x on the downside. Problem is that while they ride on names like Ameritrade (are they really a customer with your product in production?), it takes a couple of years before these companies find out what a sham they have purchased. Meanwhile MSTR gets huge mileage out of the reference. I worked with a VERY large retailer who was referenced to death by MSTR in the early to mid 90s, who NEVER rolled out the project and canned these guys when they learned that their product really couldn't possibly digest the amounts of data advertised. Nothing has changed. ttf

To: sadsack who wrote (311)	10/3/1999 11:36:00 PM
From: treetopflier	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 717

Reading their PR, sadsack, makes me puke. Example excerpt from 9/13 -- --- Best Buy Realizes the Potential of MicroStrategy Telecaster To Increase Customer Retention Rate "MicroStrategy Telecaster has the potential to be a major factor in the success of any online business," said Weimin Lu, director of data warehousing at BestBuy.com. "Now, customers will be able to receive up-to-date and fully personalized information. MicroStrategy Telecaster creates a one-to-one dialog over the telephone where people can get what they want from online merchants with a touch on their telephone keypad. With MicroStrategy Telecaster's ability to reach customers with the right information at the right time, online merchants can look to quickly expand their customer base as well as increase their customer retention rate." Now read it carefully. Just before the blah, blah, blah motherhood and apple pie bullshit of 'business intelligence', Weimin Lu says it has the 'potential'. He didn't say they were using it successfully, just implied they had shelled out some $$$ for licenses. Would you like Weimin's phone number so you can ask him just how well this is working and how well it is scaling? Keep in mind Telecaster is deployed on Windows NT and is going to be positioned between you Mr. touchtone or Mr. browser and Best Buy's 2 terabyte retain information system (someday). Want a price on Nintendo 64? Or even better, let's have Nintendo, Inc. query your database to get sales by product, by store, by region of their products for the year. Why don't you try those queries via Best Buy's MicroStrategies Telecaster product about December 10 of this year for a good example of MSTR product scalability, if it is working by then. Then go and read Best Buy's recent press releases about how far behind they are on their E-commerce projects (that use MSTR technology). Analysts whacked Best Buy for failure to complete these projects in time for this retail season. If you are a really, really good database jock give Weimin a call. He needs your help right now. They;ve been looking for brave souls to help for a year now. Gee, aren't the consultants from MicroStrategies getting it done for you Weimin? Wonder why. Could it be that their product doesn't scale as advertised...how funny! Or that their consultants don't really have the expertise necessary to handle databases that big? No wonder consulting organizations like Anderson love these guys -- huge consulting revenues trying to make it work. Not their fault if it doesn't, but they still got paid. And then they can charge you to do the next product evaluation too. Gotta love it. Saylor thinks he is fairly valued at a PE of 190. I think he is full of shit and is riding off a reference list that has more holes than a nice piece of swiss. MicroStrategies is primarily a consulting company and there aren't ANY consulting companies at 190 PEs... And there aren't any software companies whose products don't meet their stated objectives who last long there either. Someone should publish the list of companies that have FAILED to successfully implement MSTR products in high volume environments. Then we'd see how long $57 holds up. Of course, we'll probably visit $75 in the meantime with this much misguided hype. So much better for the next bunch of short sellers. Telecaster was however, a sweet guitar. Leave the name there where it belongs. At least the guitar worked as advertised. ttf