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Technology Stocks : Siebel Systems (SEBL) - strong buy? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: muckraker71 who wrote (3771)	8/15/2000 5:50:11 AM
From: Trader Dave	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 6974

mr71, (and greg abd hardly) I agree with most your post (mr71), but you hardly and greg keep coming back to oracle's ownership of the dbms platform. I've seen ZERO evidence that owning the platform (which oracle generally does ever not completely own in large heterogeneous organizations anyhow) has EVER delivered an advantage to Oracle in the past. In the future (and this is a point I really want to EMPHASIZE) platform ownership will DECREASE in strategic importance!!! There is a shift in the decision making about the new supply and demand chain applications. These new applications have a much more significant impact on external business process...hence they are much more strategic. While CIO's are major influencers on the decision, we are seeing CEO's and other senior officers involved in these decisions....referencable installed base, depth of partnerships and experience will count far more than some technology integration issues. Morover, everyone, including Larry, is preaching the decreasing importance of platform specific reliance. Finally, I don't see a lot of evidence that Oracle's existing application customers are all that satisfied, but if you want to grant an incumbent's lead to that small fraction of the market that actually uses Oracle apps (not purchased, but used) I'll give SEBL zero market share in that segment and still sleep well at night. Given SEBL's monsterous footprint (now larger than Oracle in apps and number 2 in the world) it is possible we will see an example of Oracle taking a customer from SEBL and conversely I'd be surprised to hear about SEBL taking away an Oracle install since there aren't any. The bottom line is that I feel pretty confident that overall, Sebl will hold or GAIN share over the next 2 to 3 years. Oracle may well gain some traction, but I'd bet it will be more at the expense of the remnants of Vantive or other third tier players. TD