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

To: Trader Dave who wrote (3772)	8/15/2000 5:58:26 AM
From: tekboy	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 6974

a portrait of our fearless leader... boards.fool.com tekboy@sendacaseofwhateverhedrinkstomyothergenerals.org

To: Trader Dave who wrote (3772)	8/15/2000 10:39:41 AM
From: Hardly B. Solipsist	Respond to of 6974

The iAS platform isn't just an RDBMS. If you have to write a server application that can scale to tens of thousands of concurrent users, you can either write all this software yourself, or you can build it on top of a generic server. You can save yourself a couple of years of calendar time and a lot of expense doing the latter. Another big advantages of doing the latter is that when you write a new application, your first version of the server software always needs to be reworked to support the second application, and probably needs some more work the third time. And to avoid being dependent on the underlying RDBMS you spend a lot of time worrying about that layer, too. For many desktop applications companies there was no choice but to write to Windows, and for the smaller ones getting taken over by MSFT was an acceptable exit strategy. If ORCL owns the server platform, this same model can work for them. That's what I mean when I talk about the potential platform advantage. And I think that it may be too late in CRM for it to matter. But I don't believe that this is the last enterprise application category, either. Which is why I own both ORCL and SEBL and don't worry that much about either of these holdings.

To: Trader Dave who wrote (3772)	8/16/2000 3:22:14 AM
From: muckraker71	Respond to of 6974

Good point David. Historically, Oracle's platform dominance has not translated into an advantage for the rest of their product line. I guess some of it's just fear on my part. When you look out from the SEBL bldg at 92&101, you see this massive ORCL complex of buildings just south on 101. They're what 5-10 times bigger than we are. I still say that if ORCL could ever really get a completely integrated enterprise solution properly built, it would be like a wet dream for the IT folks. Imagine, apps and db running together without any need for middleware, XML crap, blah, blah, blah. Just turn it on and run your business. Is this a pipe dream? Will Oracle deliver this mythical integrated system? I haven't seen any indication, nor has anyone else, but it is the thing I watch for. And if it never comes to pass, I won't regret a minute of my worrying. There's just too much at stake for me not to be paranoid. And to quote Andy Grove, only the paranoid survive.