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Technology Stocks : INPR - Inprise to Borland (BORL) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jerry Whlan who wrote (4267)	2/4/2000 8:57:00 PM
From: i-node	Respond to of 5102

By taking the write-down in the same fiscal year as the MSFT donation, they severely reduced the amount of taxes they had to pay on the $100M. Well, it's tough to tell without doing some research. In general, the write down is probably for accounting purposes only, and likely did not give rise to any tax deduction. The rules for taking tax losses are quite stringent, and usually must involve a sale or other disposition of the property in question (not merely a "decommissioning"). Further, the $100M in income from MSFT would presumably be capital gain, which is taxed differently from ordinary income anyway. Finally, I would assume that INPR has NOL (net operating loss) carryforwards from prior years which would offset some income. But really, you have to take into account a lot of stuff like depreciation and amortization methods to know where they are from a tax perspective. My guess: There were minimal tax benefits from the writedown; more likely, it was just some "window dressing" to get all the red ink out of the way. They knew they were going to have to take a hit, take it now & get it done with. The audited statements will have to detail the "purported" reasons for the writedown, which may provide some insight.

To: Jerry Whlan who wrote (4267)	2/4/2000 11:48:00 PM
From: TTOSBT	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 5102

Re: "One-time write down was a good thing." Jerry excuse me if I didn't make myself clear. I really do not have a problem with one time write-down's if they are for one time but I believe INPR took a write-down last year on the campus property? And that in itself is also really not what I'm trying to convey. It's the lack of any statement of finality or solution of that financial burden that INRP seems to be holding on to? If they would clarify what their forward plans are concerning that huge expense I feel that would be a huge hurdle they have cleared for the Wall St. show. And I feel they would receive more recognition or coverage from the Street as a serious cost "preventive" management team. But they just seem to do it and then walk away each time as if to say this is who we are take it or leave it. I hope it's just me worrying and none of this has any merit. But I sure would like to have it clarified because the way it stands it's anyone's guess and that will leave people to run for safety. As they say the Street doesn't like uncertainty. Especially from a company that is claiming to be open and encouraging other's to be with their products. I don't know if anyone else notices it but IMO there seems to be a conflict of ideas steaming from the core. TTOSBT