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Technology Stocks : Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Eric Wells who wrote (83731)	11/9/1999 8:36:00 PM
From: Lizzie Tudor	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

Eric, if I had the patience I would go back to the Oracle thread last year (Oct 98 timeframe) when Oracle started declining for the first time after being a high flyer for so long. The discussion was regarding how Oracle could improve its business. Virtually everybody said focus on EDI in applications using the internet as transport - I also said this, its because when I was a technical consultant we spent a huge amount of time trying to automate cross-vendor and cross-dept transactions, customers really wanted this, even though they had to spend $$ on a Van to set it up back then. With the internet, and packaged apps in enterprise IT (Sap,orcl, and a few others) EDI finally becomes manageable and thats what B2B is - I'm not at all surprised its a meltup for these stocks. (they've improved on the old edi too with xml now) The only real issue is compensation and how it will be structured for e-commerce. High-end software used to be a seat license thing - thats obviously not workable since transaction automation doesn't even have a UI. Ariba is still a software product that gets installed as far as I know as a sort of purchasing app ... not preferable. Cmrc is a transaction-based outsourced solution - this is the best, but customers won't do it unless it means cutting out some employees, therefore commerce will need to add a lot of staff. I'm doing my best to read up on cmrc vs. arba architecture and its tough to get info. Arba used to be purchasing software which was a bolt-on to your erp (or standalone). Commerce was always transaction-based. Ironically last year people thought cmrc had the wrong model - I disagree (now).

To: Eric Wells who wrote (83731)	11/9/1999 9:21:00 PM
From: GST	Respond to of 164684

Eric: "Do you ever wonder if our markets have become some kind of legalized pyramid scheme - where technology companies are used as a guise for employing securities as gambling instruments?" I have come to the conclusion that stocks no longer trade as stocks -- and this is true of net stocks in particular. The momo stocks trade as options posing as stocks -- options on future earnings, that is, if there are ever are any earnings. Call it gambling -- but the investments of choice on this thread have more in common with options -- LEAPS to be precise -- and do not behave as "stocks". If the earnings never show up, the option is worthless. It may take a couple of years for this to become obvious, and so you have a time premium. A stock trading at a huge multiple of sales will be next to worthless if growth stalls and profits fail to appear. These are options. There are no assets and no earnings now -- and no way of knowing if there ever will be any in the future. Nothing wrong with putting money into options -- but do not mistake this for and 'investment portfolio' or a good 'buy and hold'. Would you buy a portfolio of options? Would you 'buy and hold' options?

To: Eric Wells who wrote (83731)	11/9/1999 9:47:00 PM
From: Robert Rose	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 164684

<Do you ever wonder if our markets have become some kind of legalized pyramid scheme - where technology companies are used as a guise for employing securities as gambling instruments? I'm just curious if this thought ever crosses your mind.> To be honest, it never has. <By the way - what about Amazon - do you think that would be a good buy in the AM?> I no longer follow amzn that closely. As a LT hold, I think buying tomorrow is fine. For ST and IT profits, there are easier ways to make $, imo.