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Technology Stocks : All About Sun Microsystems -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mephisto who wrote (28833)	3/12/2000 2:06:00 PM
From: Mephisto	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 64865

Phooey! Regardless of the tiff about UNIX servers, SUNW is expected to have a good quarter! Individual Investor Sun on Track for Better-than-Expected Quarter Research Analyst: David Peltier (3/9/00) Sun Microsystems (Nasdaq: SUNW - news) may not be as active an issue as it was this summer, but the company is still hitting on all cylinders. With a full month left in the March quarter, the company sounded very confident with published estimates in a recent conference call. Management was happy to report that the business activity looked great across all segments. We believe that there is no stopping the Sun juggernaut in the foreseeable future. Management singled out the server business as continuing to prosper in the quarter. Sun dominates competitors such as Hewlett Packard (NYSE: HWP - news) in sales of Unix servers. The company continues to steal market share from competitors, who struggle to post double-digit sales growth while Sun consistently trends at 25% year-over-year improvement. Looking ahead to the second quarter the company is slated to release its new line of UltraSparc3 workstations and servers, which should extend the company's lead in this segment. Sun is also expected to introduce a new suite of software, including Solaris 8-- the latest version of Sun's Internet-based operating system that is due out any day now. The company did note that its business is slowing in Japan, based on a slightly weaker local currency. While the country represents 10% of Sun's business, we don't believe that this will materially affect earnings. Sun is also spending $300 million on programs to help Internet startup companies. The ``iForce' centers will offer labs for developing and testing ideas, as well as deep discounts on packages of computers and software. The fact that the company has already had 1,000 concept firms sign up for this service is testament to the fact that Sun truly is one of the businesses that is integral to building out the Internet. As noted above, shares of Sun have stayed range-bound in recent weeks. While the stock may appear expensive on price/earnings and price/sales valuations, it still trades at a discount to other tech blue-chips such as Intel (Nasdaq: INTC -news) and Cisco Systems (Nasdaq: CSCO - news) on these metrics. We feel that Sun is still an exciting (yet predictable) story, and still has 30-40% upside in the next six months. The stock should be a core technology holding in any portfolio. Updated March 10, 2000 at $95.67 Recommended 12/10/99 at $81.88 (The Magic 25 is a diversified portfolio of stocks that Individual Investor believes will outperform the market over the course of the year. In 1999 the Magic 25 portfolio was up 79.3%. On average the portfolio has risen 31.6%.)