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Technology Stocks : Drugstore.com Inc - (Nasdaq : DSCM ) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Firenze who wrote (97)	3/28/2000 2:48:00 AM
From: tuck	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132

Firenze, I appreciate being the beneficiary of your quality thinking about this subject. You clearly know your stuff. If you and I have known about the reimbursement issue for this long, I think it is safe to say that it is priced in now. Not that I dismiss the issue. I do, however, place a little less importance on it. DSCM has been diversifying its product mix so that the problems of breaking into payment networks are becoming a bit less of a drag. And into higher margin items, thank goodness. Though let's hope they stop the complete drugstore shopping experience short of cheap lawn chairs and last year's Star Wars figurines. There is still the risk that the issue turns out to be even more problematic than the Street now thinks. DSCM is the last pure play likely to get financing that doesn't involve converts. I thought about the situation you mentioned when doing DD. I figured that a player with "domain expertise," as you put it, might get interested in buying DSCM should the stock remain cheap. Such a player could get DSCM's tech, customers, and distribution facilities, and be able to integrate it into their payor network. Also it would get whatever brand awareness DSCM is able to build with this new Mom in tub campaign. And it could get all that cheap if it moved fast. Seems smart and synergistic to me. A much better idea than DSCM buying, as I idly speculated earlier, is to be bought. The buyer would not want to change the name, only proudly call it their "Drugstore.com Division" ;~} Unless, of course, the ad campaign flops. Then change the name. Got any ideas on good suitors? Maybe I'm all wet there. Do you have any thoughts on how the issue resolves? The problem is there, but the company is the strongest in its business (damning with faint praise, I know), and it has some cash to see it through for a while. By which time, Tom's angle concerning lower interest rates might kick in. Certainly my bottom fishing a thrift stock (WM) two months ago is already paying off. Are you still in? I intend to get out -- at least partly -- in the low 20s. Cheers, Tuck