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Strategies & Market Trends : Gorilla and King Portfolio Candidates -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Uncle Frank who wrote (36781)	12/19/2000 9:27:29 AM
From: lurqer	Respond to of 54805

>> Care to propose a set of criteria to define the word - Potential. How about, capable of being but not yet in existence? Thanks. <gg> I was thinking more about criteria that might focus our quest - first to markets likely to produce companies with the characteristics we desire and then to narrow the list of candidates. BB's post (#36786) begins to address this problem. He discusses using TALC criteria, but correctly (IMO) states If you want to put each of those companies into the TALC and use the guidelines of the manual in terms of when one should buy application software vendors, I find it hard to make a case that any of them belong in the Watch and Wait category at this point in time. Also, his statement If you want to base it on market share of each core niche and the revenue growth rates climbing up and approaching $500 Million to $1+ Billion is intriguing, but how do we define these "core niche" areas and somehow rank them as prospective nurseries. Some of this bears a striking resemblance to the Chaz2 approach, just a tad more methodical. Sorry, but I tend to get reflective around year end. lurqer

To: Uncle Frank who wrote (36781)	12/19/2000 9:18:20 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 54805

Larry Meets with 'The Evil Empire' <VBG>...fyi... ______________________________________________________ December 19, 2000 8:26pm Ballmer, Ellison: Can we work it out? By Mary Jo Foley ZDNet News It's not every day that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Oracle CEO Larry Ellison sit down and chat about interoperability of their respective product lines. In fact, no one at Microsoft seems to be able to recall if Ballmer and Ellison ever have held a tete-a-tete. But Microsoft and Oracle officials have confirmed a report posted on Monday to Fortune magazine's Web site that the two executives recently met and discussed Windows NT and Oracle database interoperability. According to a Microsoft spokesman, the CEOs met in early December at the request of Ballmer. The spokesman declined to offer further details on topics the two discussed or how long the meeting lasted. "Steve tries to meet with as many CEOs as possible on a regular basis," the spokesman said. He added that Ballmer's reason for calling the meeting was to ensure mutual customers of the future compatibility of the companies' products. An Oracle representative confirmed that the two companies had talked regarding the compatibility of Oracle's software with Windows NT, but also declined further comment. Oracle: MS needs us? While Microsoft and Oracle compete aggressively and vigorously on the database front, Oracle also is a Microsoft ISV (independent software vendor). As such, Oracle--like any other software vendor whose products run on Microsoft operating systems--needs to toe the line in terms of complying with Microsoft application programming interfaces and other guidelines if its software is to work on current and future versions of the Windows operating system. The Microsoft spokesman, when asked if there were any customer reports of interoperability problems involving Windows and Oracle, said he had no comment. Oracle's existing 8i database runs well on Microsoft's Windows NT Server product. But, at least so far, Oracle's 8i product has not passed the slew of tests required to earn Windows 2000 Server certification, according to the Windows 2000 certification Web site. "Windows 2000's adoption as a server platform in the enterprise will depend strongly on Oracle's positioning of its database on this platform," acknowledged Gartner Group analyst Chris LeTocq. LeTocq noted that before Windows 2000 was launched in February, Microsoft officials stressed the importance of applications compatibility and had specifically cited the need to iron out some Oracle database-Windows 2000 compatibility problems. Oracle is in the midst of developing its next-generation Oracle 9i platform, which is due to ship in 2001. Additional reporting by News.com's Wylie Wong _________________________________________________ uf: Have a great holiday season...hope to catch up with you on a future trip to California. Best Regards, Scott