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Strategies & Market Trends : Rande Is . . . HOME -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DlphcOracl who wrote (47417)	2/14/2001 9:29:29 PM
From: puborectalis	Respond to of 57584

Goldman Conference: Veritas Calls January 'Robust' By Joe Bousquin Senior Writer 2/14/01 1:44 PM ET LA QUINTA, Calif. -- Veritas (VRTS:Nasdaq - news) is on track so far this quarter, the company's founder and chairman told attendees at the Goldman Sachs Technology Investment Symposium here Wednesday. "I know that you all are looking for any bit of information to gauge us on, so I'll just share with you that in our enterprise business, our high-end license business, in our first month, we did bring in the 20% that we were looking for," Chairman Mark Leslie said. "We saw a very robust January." Leslie explained that typically Veritas aims to book 20% of its quarterly enterprise revenue in the first month, 30% in the second month and 50% in the third month. The January numbers, he said, indicate that the business is where it's supposed to be. Like many software companies, though, Veritas stock has seen what Wall Street likes to call "multiple compression" in recent weeks. In other words, the stock has been tanking. Since a recent high of $125.56 in January, it has fallen 42%. On Wednesday, the stock was up about 5% on news of a partnership with Hitachi. Leslie's first-quarter update follows a strong fourth quarter, when Veritas beat both earnings and revenue estimates as Wall Street was watching to see how newly appointed CEO Gary Bloom would perform in taking the helm of the company. Bloom joined Veritas in November after a high-profile departure from Silicon Valley neighbor -- and partner -- Oracle (ORCL:Nasdaq - news). In fact, Leslie said the outcome of that transition has resulted in some insomnia -- though not necessarily because he's worried about the business. "The first thing that keeps me up at night is that I hired my replacement in Gary Bloom, who's now working as CEO, but I'm still working like I used to be, and I haven't figured out why yet," Leslie said. "That keeps me up at night." Leslie's work has entailed, in part, going to chief information officers of companies and telling them about what Veritas does. Namely, it makes data availability software that lets companies better manage the information they keep in their databases and keep their systems from going down. But while it's the world's 10th largest company dedicated to software, it's doesn't have the instant recognition of Oracle, PeopleSoft (PSFT:Nasdaq - news) or SAP (SAP:NYSE ADR - news). That's beginning to change, Leslie said. "We have moved to becoming a strategic supplier to our customers. A year ago, as I met with CIOs, I was commenting to them and introducing myself to them as being from Veritas, the largest company you've never heard of. Now, that's a little different." He said the addition of Bloom, an exec who's focused on operations, will help the company take itself to the next level. "Veritas has always moved ahead, left little bits of broken glass around us, and then moved ahead again without cleaning up the broken glass," Leslie said. "Gary is one who can bring a lot of discipline and efficiency to the company. He's the kind of guy who can pick up the broken glass."

To: DlphcOracl who wrote (47417)	2/15/2001 3:07:22 AM
From: Mark Konrad	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 57584

Rally, Really?! I think so, DO (and I am betting on it), but it may not be anything big. Just enough to alleviate a short-term oversold condition. I'm tracking and trading quite a few techs right now (50-100); I'd estimate 2/3's of them are or have been making bottoms and reversals within just the last couple days. Can't say if there will be a sustained rally beyond a 50% retracement of this month's carnage. That would still be worthy of a slow position-trader like me--MK--