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Technology Stocks : Compaq -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JDN who wrote (77088)	1/29/2000 7:16:00 AM
From: Henry Niman	Respond to of 97611

Ashok Kumar of US Bancorp Piper Jaffray comments on CPQ recovery in Monday's Barron's 207.235.5.146 Quite a few comments on CPQ lately 207.235.5.146

To: JDN who wrote (77088)	1/29/2000 9:06:00 AM
From: Elwood P. Dowd	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 97611

JDN... Imho, there will be some positive news from CPQ the first of the week. Possibly another upgrade, new product, Street friendly explanation of the rev issue, and/or other. El

To: JDN who wrote (77088)	1/29/2000 11:10:00 PM
From: rudedog	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 97611

JDN and all - Had coffee and doughnuts this AM with my analyst buddy before he headed back to the big apple - very interesting conversation which applies to the ML comments. He said that he saw absolutely no inconsistency to the statements Capellas made from the earnings announcement through the end of the conference and thought that the press and also the comments of the ML guy were "piling on" as there was little room for confusion. His understanding of what Capellas said - 1) Capellas' revenue growth GOAL for CPQ across the board in 2000 is 15% and that is what he has used to set performance objectives for his team. In other words, to get a top rating at the end of the year, those guys need to deliver 15%. 2) He agreed with several who said that 12% or 13% was more likely - there is a lot of uncertainty about how the transition will work and the impression my guy got is that Capellas was saying "I won't shoot anyone if we only achieve 12%" 3) The current earnings forecast of $1.08 or whatever is based on 10% revenue growth, so Capellas is very comfortable with that. By projection, 13% would yield $1.40 (my personal favorite) and the stretch goal of 15% would yield $1.60 for the year. He continued to be impressed by the clarity of vision of the management team, the sense that everyone he spoke with from the top dogs down to line managers had the same idea of what they were trying to do and how they should do it, and the believability of the roadmaps and plans. He also said there was a real excitement in the way the employees talked about the products and the company which he had not seen in CPQ in many years. I also asked him what he thought about DELL - he didn't have a lot to say but commented that it was no great surprise to him that the "law of large numbers" was catching up to them. He was a little troubled, as I am, by the weak communication by DELL management but he said "I don't think those guys are used to dealing with bad news, they'll get through it"...