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

To: Uncle Frank who wrote (5418)	10/17/2001 7:41:08 PM
From: puborectalis	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6974

Siebel Posts a Rare Miss for the Third Quarter By Joe Bousquin Senior Writer 10/17/2001 04:45 PM EDT Updated from 1:23 p.m. EDT Siebel Systems (SEBL:Nasdaq - news - commentary - research - analysis), the Silicon Valley software titan that had managed to meet Wall Street's expectations despite withering spending on technology, disappointed investors Wednesday with its third-quarter results, turning in just half of the earnings it had projected for the quarter. The company said it earned $35.2 million, or 7 cents per share, on $428.5 million in total revenue. The firm said it saw sales of $193.5 million in its core software license business. After lowering their estimates several times during the third quarter, analysts were expecting earnings of 9 cents per share on $481.4 million in total revenue, according to Multex.com. Analysts had expected software license revenues to come in around $220 million. During the same period last year, Siebel earned 14 cents per share on $481 million in revenue, including $308.8 million in software license revenues. Before reporting, Siebel shares sold off dramatically, down as much as $4.16, or 19.3% at $17.38. The company's results unexpectedly came out prior to the stock market's 4 p.m. close of trading. In afterhours trading, the stock continued its plummet, trading at $16.75 on Instinet at 4:30 p.m. After surging on the flood of technology spending, and a sizzling demand for its main customer relationship management software in the late 1990's, Siebel has been struggling this year with sequentially lower sales numbers. Now, year-over-year comparisons are also faltering with the company's current miss. While the company had managed to hit Wall Street's estimates until now, it only did so in some instances because those expectations had been tempered. Until today, the firm was regarded as one company that would always make its numbers. Its current miss comes after analysts had severely lowered their estimates in the first place. For instance, while analysts set an earnings bar of 9 cents for the third quarter, that was well below the 14 cents in earnings that Siebel projected during its second-quarter conference call, its latest guidance on third-quarter numbers. Another nagging concern for the company has been increased competition. While many smaller software companies that focused on Siebel's main customer software space have shuttered or been acquired, bigger software firms have moved in on Siebel's turf. Software giants Oracle (ORCL:Nasdaq - news - commentary - research - analysis), PeopleSoft (PSFT:Nasdaq - news - commentary - research - analysis) and SAP (SAP:NYSE - news - commentary - research - analysis) now all have more compelling customer relationship management, or CRM, offerings and analysts say Siebel's been feeling the heat from them. The company was so ruffled, in fact, that it emailed analysts to take Oracle to task after it reported its own quarterly numbers. That was seen as a sign that Siebel was having a hard time on its own, and investors are sure to take it to task now.