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Politics : Idea Of The Day -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: IQBAL LATIF who wrote (32259)	7/15/2000 3:27:29 PM
From: Peace	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50167

We have a long way to go before the technology boom ends. quote.bloomberg.com India to Spur Long-Distance Competition, Computers, Internet By Sumit Sharma New Delhi, July 15 (Bloomberg) -- India, the second-most populous country, will deregulate domestic long distance telecommunications next month, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said, and won't tax sales of computers and related equipment for three years. Vajpayee said at a conference of state technology ministers that India must stimulate the use of computers and the Internet. India has 1 billion people and 1 million Internet users, according to the BBC. ``Recognizing the benefits of large-scale competition, the government has decided to fully deregulate national long-distance operations with no artificial restriction on the number of licenses to be issued,'' Vajpayee said in a speech delivered to ministers of Indian states. He said India will accelerate reforms and deregulate domestic long distance phone services by Aug. 15. Private companies will be allowed to have their own connections to take signals from undersea fiber optic cables, breaking a state monopoly. That should cut capacity restraints that have limited the spread of the Internet in India, he said. Private phone companies and Indian consumers, who pay among the highest telephone rates in the world, stand to gain as the government dismantles state-run telecommunications monopolies. Competition The former state monopolies will be forced to compete with companies eager to win market share. Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd., for example, is a state-run company which has held a monopoly on domestic long-distance phone services in Bombay and New Delhi. Its shares closed Friday at 204.55 rupees, down 46 percent from a 52-week high of 378.55 rupees set Feb. 11. Pramod Mahajan, India's minister for information technology, said state ministers had agreed not to tax sales of computers and related equipment for the next three years. Sales tax is levied by the individual Indian states. Custom and excise taxes will be cut for optical fiber equipment, Internet access devices, and TV sets for long-distance education and extension programs. Vajpayee didn't announce the extent of the cuts. ``India has come of age and embraced information technology as the principal engine of rapid growth,'' Vajpayee said.

To: IQBAL LATIF who wrote (32259)	7/17/2000 4:02:51 AM
From: IQBAL LATIF	Respond to of 50167

Bull investors newsletter..<<MSFT EARNINGS: A SIDE ISSUE THAT HAS BEEN OVERBLOWN * Tuesday Microsoft reports earnings. One widespread financial rag has stated that MSFT's earnings will be slower, and that the news will shock the markets into a 20%-25% correction over the next few months. The support for the conclusion of the earnings slowdown comes from some of the pre-announcements from enterprise software companies such as Computer Associates (the CEO of CA, after his stock was trashed, jabbed in defense that he felt his company was not the only one that would show a slowdown), BMCS, UIS, and IFMX. The idea of a market correction based on this is that as MSFT goes, the market goes. * The first premise as to an overall slowdown in the software sector is wrong. CA and BMCS are two shining examples of companies that are either feast or famine, and their stock charts show it. Their up and down forecasts have jaded investors, and their stock charts show it. Our sources indicate that the market for business software is still huge, and those companies that are best positioned for the future are making great money. * Is there a MSFT slowdown? Saner heads have to realize that slowing MSFT earnings are not an unforeseen possibility. Look at the recent history of MSFT. It has been embroiled in a fight for its existence the past three years, spending time and other resources on that battle. That drains any company's resources, and bleeds away profits as the focus is not on the business. MSFT has already been experiencing slowing earnings. Steve Ballmer's comments about investors putting too much money into dot.com startups and not companies such as MSFT is to us a fairly clear message that MSFT has lost some of its edge and is reaching to rekindle interest. * Still, this is not the first rumor this year that a big tech company would miss its number. Much as with MSFT, earlier this year the story raging in chatrooms that CSCO was going to miss its numbers and that it would be down at $30, and that too would ravage the market. That did not come close to happening though the market did plunge into a bear market; that, however, was not Cisco's doing. Thus, rumors of Microsoft's failure to make earnings may be premature and false. At its latest earnings release MSFT warned of future slowing as it always does; it has always been a very good poker player with its earnings. * What about the second premise regarding a market selloff if MSFT earnings are weaker than expected? It could happen. Certainly a major slowdown in MSFT would panic some investors. Remember, we were saying many investors were not getting into the rally that started in late May because the household names were not moving up. If one of these names falters, that could shake the confidence of these latecomers to the rally. With all of the strong earnings we are seeing from chip stocks, internet stocks and other sectors, however, it is apparent that the hard numbers coming in demonstrate that the technology sector is still roaring and expanding. Any slowdowns we have seen in a company's earnings have yet to show they are sector-wide, but are more company specific. This evidence is more compelling to us than any anecdotal evidence of a slowdown in the entire software sector and beyond. * Thus, there would be no fundamental reason for a selloff on any news that MSFT's earnings are lower, if in fact that turns out to be true. If there is one, we expect it would be much like what happened when the Salomon Smith Barney downgrade of the semiconductor sector came out: a sell down followed by a realization that MSFT's problems are pretty obviously related to all of its various short term woes, and then a pretty nice snapback. Let's face it. The market is doing well and companies are reporting excellent earnings. Such news can always start the end of the market, but there is too much other information out there that indicates things are going very well overall. In other words, any selling on lower earnings by MSFT would present a buying opportunity regarding any of the leaders that suffer some selling on the news just as we saw in semiconductors. Indeed, if MSFT does fall back below 70, that could be a great chance to pick up more shares of that stock, though we would wait and let the stock show us it has bottomed; this type of news on a company can dog it for several months before analysts get a feel for the next quarter's earnings. * These rumors light up the chat rooms and newsletters about every three months. Last Fall it was a 1929-like crash in October. Late in the year it was a Y2K apocalypse. Earlier this year it was Cisco. The MSFT prediction may be true, but we just don't see it taking down the market. When looking at where the market is going, we have said over and over again, look at the what the market is showing you, and don't listen to conjecture. The market is performing well, and earnings by the leaders are stellar. CA, BMCS and the others, they were not really surprises. Their histories were checkered at best. As for MSFT, the obvious, obvious problem is the almost all-consuming litigation it has had to fight. Any business that has been involved in litigation knows how that diverts attention from making money. What's more, this one was for the company's life. Thus, any earnings slowdown that is not cataclysmic will most likely be quickly accepted by the majority of investors.>>