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Technology Stocks : Oracle Corporation (ORCL) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: philipah who wrote (13586)	4/1/2000 12:17:00 PM
From: bob	Respond to of 19080

Cramer will become a bull again in the near future. Just the way he did recently after missing about 50% of the run up. Cramer's problem is that he can't see further than the end of his nose.

To: philipah who wrote (13586)	4/1/2000 12:38:00 PM
From: Hardly B. Solipsist	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 19080

ORCL has amassed a big pile of cash just so they can buy things, but I think that it's a lot harder to successfully merge software companies than it is hardware companies (at least it seems to so me, and I think that recent history supports this contention). ORCL has bought a number of small companies in the last few years, and I think that one could say that they could do better, but I find it very hard to believe that anyone buying PeopleSoft would be anything other than a mistake. Most of these B2B companies have such inflated stock prices that only other vastly overpriced companies can "afford" to buy them (without undergoing a fundamental dilution). And two balloons don't make a solid company.

To: philipah who wrote (13586)	4/1/2000 1:02:00 PM
From: Bipin Prasad	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 19080

First of all, I followed Jubak's stock picks about 8~9 months till Sep '99, his track record was so bad I stopped checking on his picks. I wonder why MSFT /or MSN is still keeping him. Did miracle happen to his performance since ? . In the current market, the stocks of gorillas that have mastered the art of acquisition are more valuable than those of gorillas that focus on internal innovation. Yea right! Has he actually looked at company's performance 2~3 yrs after acquisition? In short term it might look good on a paper because of write offs. Real numbers will surface several yrs after merger or acquisition. It's been well known how hard it is to completely integrate tech, culture and management and etc. It's way too costly in general. Why ORCL should write checks when ORCL can do better in shorter time frame? We don't need patch jobs! They are extravagantly valued/ overvalued stocks. On the other hand, ORCL is way undervalued in the long run. I was going to comment on the rest of Jubak's article, but decided not to waste time any further. The weather here is so good that I'd rather take kids to play tennis. In short, he is the guy who was bearish on ORCL when it was below @50(before 2 splits) and "bullish when it was $80 ~ 90(before last split)". Why should we waste time on his nonsense? disclaimer: Somebody posted that he became bullish when ORCL was around 80 ~ 90 on this forum. I haven't followed his picks since Sep '99. Have a great weekend! InSook Prasad

To: philipah who wrote (13586)	4/1/2000 3:16:00 PM
From: lml	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 19080

First of all, its a Jubak piece, not a Cramer piece. But in the grander scheme, it makes no difference. Neither "journalist" deserves much respect from the individual investor. IMHO, Jubak knows little of what he talks about, spoos out information no different than one reads on message boards. To give Jubak the best credit that is due him, it is to say that he is no different than you or I. In short, I would place little, if any, weight on what he has to say. Now as to the hypothesis of his article, that it is better for a gorilla to acquire potential competitors with its lofty stock price than it is to build from within & thus suffer a depressed stock price from the resurgence of new competitors, shows little, if any, substantive analysis. Instead, the article is rather conclusionary, that if one acquires other technologies, one's stock price will only go higher as competitors disappear. Does Jubak ever stop to question whether such diverse technologies can always be "seamlessly" merged into one cohesive product to deliver one solution to a customer so that will never fail and bring a customer's entire business to its knees? No, Jubak doesn't address this issue. He doesn't address any of the risks associated with acquiring competing technologies that either will not work in unison with the acquirer's core technology or family of technologies. He may allude to the hypothesis that one should acquire competitors simply to snuff out the competition. I would refer this the MSFT strategy, which was why we saw Balmer crying his bald head about the valuations of hi-tech companies several months ago. He wanted to buy companies with better technology than MSFT (no surprise) but despite MSFT's own lofty price, could not afford to do so. Conversely to the issues of merging diverse technologies, Jubak does not address the synergistic effects of growing one's family of products from within. He pays no heed to the customer who will either buy the incumbent gorilla's cohesively- structured family of solutions or the recently slapped together hodge-podge product by the newly-merged, newly-scaled competitor. Obviously, Jubak has made his career as a journalist, and not as a businessman. Because if he had any skills as a businessman, he would see the VALUE of a home-grown seamless family products of scale that is capable of delivering a SINGLE SOLUTION to a customer's entire business. Rule No. 1 is to focus on the customer. This is what ORCL does; this is what Jubak fails to see or appreciate in his article. To repeat, Jim is just spooing off the mouth. Nevertheless, it makes enjoyable reading, but never to be taken too seriously.