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Technology Stocks : Comverse Technology -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mark Ambrose who wrote (1113)	4/26/2000 12:36:00 AM
From: c_k1	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1331

Mark ... Some years ago you could have avaken me in the middle of the night and I could have told you everyting about Comverse. ... Not anymore; really no reason; you all know; I know so little I really feel bad about it. ... All has happened so fast; and a bit frightening. ... In '91 someone mentioned that telecom was the the way to go. ... Well, any sensible person could have figured that out, I presume. I think we have to think ahead, NOW! It is, at least to me, a bit comfusing. I am heavy into NOK and ERICY, and, although we are going to have Bluetooth (?) guess I should know the spelling of the old Viking king, but I do not. ... So, what has this to do with Comverse. ... Everything! They do not discriminate w. whatever phone is used. I do whish I could put my thoughts in better English, but I can not. I guess I could talk to Paul B. whom I have known since '91 but I really do not want to bother him with my stupid questions. (He has been very, very, good to me, so far.) As for this board ... it is quiet, low key, lovely ... just the way it always has been ... because ... that is the only way we need to have it. ... We will go up and down, mostly because of the funds etc., but, we will never have to worry. Well, back to my window; watching the heavenly view! ... Whatever .......

To: Mark Ambrose who wrote (1113)	5/10/2000 5:46:00 PM
From: Mark Ambrose	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1331

CMVT's purchase of LORX meant to battle NICE systems' Nice Vision ? biz.yahoo.com Tuesday May 9, 1:29 pm Eastern Time worldlyinvestor.com Sector of the Day Nice to Know You By Robert Cyran, Correspondent Nice Systems is recording growth by recording what you and that telemarketer are talking about. If the telemarketers interrupting your dinner seem more polished and persuasive than they used to, you can blame Nice Systems (Nasdaq:NICE - news). Or on the other hand, if a salesperson gets your complicated order straight or a technical help desk can get your computer going again, you can thank the folks at Nice. Either way, it's a company worth looking into as an investor. A former maker of electronic surveillance gear for the Israeli military, Nice nowadays makes software that allows companies to track how their telephone salespeople or representatives are treating you -- and treating the company they work for. As businesses decentralize, better-trained phone workers are increasingly important. To improve service, call centers need to figure out what their workers are doing. Until recently, this mainly meant counting the number of calls handled and listening in on a random selection. But phone reps can be unhelpful as quickly as they can be helpful -- probably faster. And bosses can't be listening in to every call. The best way to do it is to see what the agent is saying, seeing and doing. It may sound a bit creepy, but it's effective. With software from places like Nice, bosses can make sure employees are not only being polite, but that they're getting the right information from the right computer screen. Nice Systems is set to capture a nice percentage of this burgeoning market through clever technology and even smarter tie ups with American companies. It's already started to cash in, with 42% growth in revenues and profits doubling in the last quarter. There should be more of that to come: the market for call-monitoring software will grow from $120 million in 1999 to $850 million in 2003, according to market-research firm Dataquest. Not-so-Nice Background It's not odd that Nice is based in Israel. Tech firms have sprouted like mushrooms there in the past decade as a massive influx of Russian scientists and engineers set up shop with veterans of the Israeli military. Over 70 Israeli tech firms have listed on the Nasdaq and more are on the way. (See worldlyinvestor.com Emerging Markets Insider columnist Peter Marber's latest take on the Israeli tech sector.) Of course, Tel Aviv's hi-tech neighborhood has its own cringe-inducing nickname: Silicon Wadi. Nice Systems is older than most of these upstarts. Several military intelligence engineers started the company in 1986 to sell electronics gear that monitored radio signals. When military sales slowed, Nice switched to ``spying'' for the private sector. It listed on Nasdaq two years later. As the recording sector grew, so did Nice -- to where it now controls the largest share of the telephone-recording market. Its first markets, for financial services, emergency services and air traffic control centers, where recording of conversations became mandatory for safety or legal reasons, is nearly saturated now and growing slowly. This Call May Be Monitored... But call-center growth is more than making up for the slack. Only about 15% of call centers have some form of recording set up but the percentage is quickly increasing. Recording is useful to call centers because it can solve disputes quickly. If a customer claims he ordered a ticket to Miami but the recording shows he actually said Orlando, it's easy to prove to that the airline didn't screw up. The more advanced software tools such as screen monitoring take this one step further. Now, that same airline could find out, for example, if its agent issued a ticket to the wrong city by entering the wrong airport code. About 40% of Nice's sales are now to call centers, and these sales are increasing by over 20% a quarter. Furthermore, the price of a system is going up as technology advances and companies want one centralized system that stores customers' e-mails, fax and chat in addition to phone calls. Sales of more advanced systems are growing at an even faster rate. ``Their sales are just exploding as more centers open and each center becomes more complex,'' says Dan Zuk, New York-based analyst for CIBC World Markets. What's more, profits are growing even faster as economies of scale kick in. Operating margins rose as sales increased much faster than sales and administrative expenses. Nice Friends Even though Nice is the largest company in digital recording, it faces a tough fight for selling the more advanced systems. Two companies in particular, Comverse (Nasdaq:CMVT - news) and Witness Systems (Nasdaq:WITS - news) are ahead in deploying the most advanced systems. However, it looks like Nice is readying a more comprehensive system for launch. It recently signed agreements with giants Siebel (Nasdaq:SEBL - news) and Alcatel, to distribute advanced digital recording systems. ``Siebel and Alcatel wouldn't team up with Nice if they thought Nice had poor technology up its sleeve,'' says Shmuel Ben-Eliezer, a Tel Aviv based analyst for SG Securities. That said, the markets will certainly punish Nice for any missteps in introducing more advanced systems. Nice Vision The more recent stage of Nice's growth is in digital video monitoring. The company recently introduced a digitally recorded video surveillance system for airports, railroads and prisons, and sales are rapidly increasing. ``We were expecting NiceVision to generate 10% of there sales by the end of the year. It looks more like it's going to be double that.'' says Zuk.