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Technology Stocks : RATIONAL SOFTWARE- BUY OR HOLD -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Asymmetric who wrote (2969)	10/11/1999 2:03:00 PM
From: Randy Ellingson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3115

Peter- Since I am not in the software industry, I'm not the right person to answer the question of how Rational and Mercury are differentiated. One thing I think is true is that MERQ does not compete within the software development applications market per se, but does compete (and effectively, apparently) within the field of e-commerce (web) application testing. Rational does offer web-application load testing, but perhaps has not developed their product as extensively as MERQ, and therefore does not offer as complete a solution. I met a guy on a flight recently who is a VP within Computer Associate's division which does compete in some areas with Rational. I wish I had asked him some more direct questions about the market, but his take on Rational in general was that they are a "very formidable competitor", and that he loses deals to them as often as he wins deals from them. I'm not sure how valuable that info was; he mused at one point "maybe I should buy some shares of Rational". To me that means he doesn't see the details of Rational's future any more clearly than the rest of us. Hard to say. He was with Platinum Technology and joined CA during the takeover a year or two back. Randy