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To: BirdDog who wrote (47428)	2/5/2002 8:20:44 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 65232

Enron, Anderson Trade New Barbs Over Collapse Tuesday February 5, 6:36 pm Eastern Time By Kevin Drawbaugh WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Enron and its former auditor traded fresh recriminations on Tuesday, as former Enron chairman Kenneth Lay reversed his earlier refusal to appear before congressional committees probing possible improprieties in the nation's biggest ever bankruptcy. Andersen CEO Joseph Berardino told the House Financial Services capital markets subcommittee that the special Enron committee led by William Powers, dean of the University of Texas Law School, had rebuffed Andersen's attempts to offer information about Enron's spectacular collapse. ``We begged them to talk to us,'' Berardino told the congressional panel. ``This committee did not talk to us.'' The hard-hitting Powers Report, released on Saturday, alleged that Andersen was closely involved in the creation of the shadowy web of partnerships used by Enron to hide debt. The chief of America's fifth-largest accounting firm said it did not know about transactions involving the partnerships. Contrary to the Powers report, he said, Andersen did not help develop those partnerships. ``We did not help to establish. We reviewed the accounting that others developed,'' he said. Enron fired Chicago-based Andersen as its auditor on Jan. 17, ending a long relationship in which some Andersen accountants ended up working for Houston-based Enron. ACCOUNTING INDUSTRY REFORMS Andersen's involvement in the Enron affair has sullied the firm's reputation and those of other accountants, setting off a wave of concern in markets about financial reporting quality. Responding to market concerns, Berardino called for changes to the accounting industry in response to the Enron affair, which he called ``painful, but instructive.'' He said U.S. accountants should drop their simplistic ''pass/fail'' corporate auditing system and replace it with more flexible quality grades and ``plain English'' auditing reports. Touching on a sore point for Andersen, which has said it was left in the dark by Enron on some questionable transactions, Berardino suggested ``making it a felony to lie, mislead or withhold information from the auditor.'' In another development on the widening Enron scandal, President Bush appeared to rebuff a call to name a special prosecutor to probe Enron's collapse. Speaking to reporters in Pittsburgh, Bush brushed off an appeal by a key senator to appoint a special prosecutor to lead an investigation into Enron's collapse, saying his Justice Department could handle it. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ernest Hollings, a South Carolina Democrat, broke with the bipartisan tone of the Enron investigations on Monday with a call for the appointment of a special counsel due to Bush administration links to Enron. ``This is a business problem. And my Justice Department is going to investigate and if there's wrongdoing we'll hold them accountable for mistreatment of employees and shareholders,'' Bush said. Asked whether he did not see a need for a special counsel, Bush said: ``I see a need for laws. I see a need for a full investigation, and that's what we're providing,'' rejecting a prosecutorial tool that was a staple of the scandals surrounding former President Bill Clinton. GENEROUS POLITICAL DONOR Enron was a generous political donor to both parties, although it tilted its money toward Republicans and was especially generous to Bush's 2000 presidential campaign. Separately on Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill said the Bush administration would push for more accountability from corporate chieftains in a revamp of business disclosure laws. ``The key is accountability and responsibility for corporate officers and directors, accountants and auditors,'' O'Neill said in testimony prepared for the Senate Banking Committee. The Treasury Department, Federal Reserve, Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission have been charged by Bush with finding ways to close loopholes in the nation's corporate accounting system.

To: BirdDog who wrote (47428)	2/6/2002 4:19:30 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 65232

Sun Micro Aims Defend Turf with New Storage Systems Wed Feb 6, 4:14 PM ET By Peter Henderson SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Network computer maker Sun Microsystems Inc. on Wednesday launched new data storage systems and services designed to take back business lost to stand-alone data storage companies like EMC Corp. ONtheMove: Sun EVP: We can capture a large share of $9-12B market - (ON24) Industry analysts said the services were a solid step that filled a gap in Sun's product line, at a time when the company that led the charge to outfitting dot-coms was suffering from their demise. "I'm hearing customers say, hey you finally got your act together," Chief Operating Officer Ed Zander said in an interview ahead of a meeting with analysts on Wednesday. "I don't think the industry on a whole is on a very rapid positive upswing," he said. Sun's Chief Executive Scott McNealy said on Tuesday the company was still expecting to return to profitability in its June quarter. Sun's new offerings included new midrange storage systems and revved up systems based on hardware from Hitachi Data Systems, with which Sun formed an alliance last August. Sun also rolled out services and software to manage its own systems and monitor competitors' machines, including EMC Corp. Known for its powerful server computers, Sun has had difficulty keeping storage players like EMC at bay, said industry analyst Tony Prigmore of Enterprise Storage Group, who said Sun would be better positioned with the new storage offerings. "Number one, they can play better defense," he said. "The storage-only vendors have for quite a while viewed the Sun server base as relatively easy pickings." Sun is wrapping the whole thing together into what it calls Storage ONE, an acronym for Open Network Environment. EMC, which analysts say sells more storage attached to Sun servers than Sun itself, viewed the new offering as "repackag(ed) existing technology", according to spokesman Greg Eden. Roger Cox, an analyst at technology research firm Gartner, said Sun sold about $1.3 billion of attached storage in 2000, about 7.8 percent of the market, and he made a rough guess that Sun's sales fell about 30 percent to $900 million last year. EMC has about 40 percent of the storage attached to Sun boxes in 2000, about 10 percentage points more than Sun, Cox said. The storage launch comes as Sun is under pressure. Salomon Smith Barney moved analysts covering Sun, and the new one, Rich Gardner, on Tuesday dropped Sun to neutral from a buy. Zander likened the atmosphere to 1995, when many felt machines based on Microsoft Windows operating systems and Intel Corp microchips would commoditize the high-end space. That threat, which still exists, has been replaced to some degree by expectations for the free Linux operating system, which Sun offers on low-end machines but says is not capable of running a company. "It's like I have the same analyst conference I had seven years ago, except this time around 80 percent, maybe 90 percent of our issues are in the economy. We caught in the updraft and we got caught in the downdraft," Zander said. Zander says Sun's relationship with Hitachi is bearing fruit and he expects to squeeze out EMC from Sun sales, especially new ones. "You have to keep your head down, stay focused. You may have to take some more hits," he said.