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Technology Stocks : All About Sun Microsystems -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Charles Tutt who wrote (43711)	6/7/2001 9:16:21 PM
From: cfimx	Respond to of 64865

yeah, but isn't this the suncom thread? just checking. ps: nice stick save anyway ct.

To: Charles Tutt who wrote (43711)	6/9/2001 8:28:45 AM
From: techtonicbull	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 64865

Chopra re-iterates buy target 55

To: Charles Tutt who wrote (43711)	6/11/2001 10:44:08 AM
From: DiViT	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 64865

Following the Sun? By Mark Boslet One of the hottest questions of late on Wall Street has been whether the foundering economy would cause Oracle to miss a second quarter in a row. Sun Microsystems may have already provided the answer. On March 1, Oracle acknowledged a troubled third quarter, sending its stock into a tailspin. While the fourth quarter, which ends May 30, is usually its strongest - an aggressive, quota-minded sales staff typically pushes hard to lock in year-end bonuses - things could be different this time for the software giant. Sun Microsystems' embarrassing fourth-quarter earnings miscue last week makes the prospect all the more likely. Few products go as well together in high tech than Oracle's market-leading Unix database running on Sun's market-leading Unix servers. It's a big business, accounting for billions in sales. But with corporations around the globe reining in spending and dot-com demand disappearing, expansion is coming to a halt for both companies. The implications for the software industry and for high tech in general are huge. Many Wall Street bulls hoped the swooning industry would halt its decline. Bad news from Oracle could shatter those hopes, especially if Europe follows the United States into a period of slack demand. Oracle analysts are worried. "The clear message we were hearing back on a number of fronts is that the quarter was looking tough," says J.P. Morgan analyst James Pickrel, who was among the first last week to trim growth expectations for Oracle. In April's high-tech rally, Oracle stock rose more than 50 percent, to $20. Software "buying is going on, but not at the back-to-races" pace the stock gain would suggest, according to Pickrel. Software deals are relatively small, and pricing pressure appears considerable. Oracle's European business looks weak, and Big 5 technology consultants haven't been able to push database purchases on their cautious clients. The most bearish investors on Wall Street expected the company to preannounce a quarterly miss as early as last Friday, but one will more likely come this week. Its shares pulled back to near $15 late last week. There's been limited information from Oracle. In March, when the company released its third-quarter results, CFO Jeffrey Henley said visibility into the fourth quarter was poor. Orders looked solid, "but remember what happened to us in the third quarter," he warned. "Our assumption is things will get worse." An Oracle representative declined to comment on the company's expected results. Sun offered a world of insight. That helps, since smart investors know they can collect clues to a company's future by reviewing the fortunes of its major partners. And the link between Sun and Oracle is deep. Two months into its fourth quarter, Sun projected that revenue would be down more than 20 percent from last year and that earnings would be 2 cents to 4 cents a share. (Industry analysts were anticipating 6 cents.) "The surprise was Europe," says its CFO, Michael Lehman. In the past six to seven weeks, "demand in Europe has really tailed off, more than we thought." Business in the United States appears to have stabilized during the past few months, Lehman notes. But "without a doubt it is a challenging environment out there," especially among telecommunications customers - some of the largest users of technology, whose buying is now tapering off. With this kind of pessimism, Wall Street's bears have had little difficulty imagining the worst. On the other hand, if the first part of this week passes and Oracle executives remain silent, the bulls just might stage a rally. biz.yahoo.com