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Technology Stocks : Siebel Systems (SEBL) - strong buy? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: longterm8750 who wrote (3302)	2/11/2000 3:01:00 PM
From: Trader Dave	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6974

I've stopped trying to bother with the nonsense on the Yahoo thread. I think that the implications for this deal are massive. Tim Dolan's piece from alex brown was thoughtful and worth reading. This plays directly into a "Stars and Planets" scenario. If you win a star the planets surrounding the star will likely become customers. I'm stunned at how little commentary has emerged from the ANALyst community about this deal. I'm not worried about SEBL'S prospects short term at all. Great sector and the company is executing brilliantly. However, there are two problems that remain issues IMO. First, SEBL has the dreaded "perpetual licensing disease." I hate this problem, I hate the one time only sale with only moderate ongoing maintenance fees. It's not an enormous worry given how early we are in a market that swamps the ERP sector in size, but it troubles me the company's not publicly doing anything about it. I suspect it's because Howard Graham has been planning to retire for some time and knew it wouldn't be his problem to deal with. Problem two is the culture. I have major concerns about Tom's approach. I have a few friends at SEBL and when they can sneak in a personal call, they all tell me how miserable they are but that they're making money. I know that world class egomaniacs like Larry and Tom can be wildly successful, but Cisco has been just as successful and the people are MUCH happier and involuntary turnover has remained under 5% for years. I've owned SEBL for a while now, but it still keeps me concerned. But, the story is getting much much more compelling. TD