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Technology Stocks : Ariba Technologies (Nasdaq-ARBA) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: 10K a day who wrote (1151)	9/15/2000 7:36:52 AM
From: John Carragher	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 2110

ARIBA'S MOMENTUM REMAINS ROBUST Last week, Ariba (ARBA $157-9/16) CFO Ed Kinsey and cofounder and SVP Bobby Lent updated investors on their business at the Robertson Stephens Internet Conference in San Francisco. With the company's high profile, leadership in its field and high-multiple valuation come increasing scrutiny from investors, the media and competitors, creating conditions ripe for misinterpretation. Although nothing substantive came out of the conference to affect our near- or long-term view of the company (Ariba continues to be one of our favorite names in B2B), three issues surfaced: the health of the Ariba/i2/IBM alliance, the strength of business in August and possible European softness, and the composition of revenue. None of these are of major consequence, in our view, nor do they impact our outlook on the stock. In fact, we believe Ariba's business momentum, closure rates, development efforts and key partnerships are in excellent condition. In recent weeks, the company: * announced key customer wins, including Lucent Technologies, FleetBoston (the corporate parent of Robertson Stephens, publisher of the Web Report), Transplace.com (Covenant Transport, J.B. Hunt, M.S. Carriers); * extended its technology leadership with Ariba Buyer 7.0; * struck key partnerships, including spearheading the UDDI Project (to develop business registration standards) with IBM and Microsoft and expanding its financial services network with Escrow.com, Pure Markets and VeriSign; * closed the acquisition of SupplierMarket.com, adding core capabilities in complex, direct goods sourcing. Therefore, we believe healthy upside is possible to our fiscal fourth quarter forecasts of $100 million and operating loss of ($0.05). In the previous period, the company reported $80.7 million and a loss of ($0.05), exceeding our estimates by $30.2 million and $0.04, respectively. We reiterate our Buy rating on the stock and consider it a core name in the B2B software space. Although it is still early in the B2B buildout, Ariba has taken center stage and is well-positioned to defend and capitalize on its position, in our opinion. We believe Ariba has the opportunity to become a $2-billion-plus top-line company with 25% to 30% operating margins in the next three to five years.