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To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (11365)	5/7/2002 2:38:01 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 57684

eBay-Accenture deal aimed at big guns By Troy Wolverton Staff Writer, CNET News.com May 7, 2002, 10:30 AM PT eBay is teaming up with consulting company Accenture to bring more big businesses to the online auction giant, the companies plan to announce Tuesday. Accenture's new service, called "Connection to eBay," is expected to go live this fall, but Accenture has already begun testing it out, said Lisa Gordon-Miller, a spokeswoman for Burson-Marsteller, which is handling publicity about the service for Accenture. The companies plan to announce the partnership at the NetWorld+Interop conference in Las Vegas on Tuesday, she said. Miller declined to say how Accenture would charge clients for the service. eBay representatives did not return calls seeking comment. Accenture will be competing against a number of smaller consulting firms that have made it their business to help companies list on eBay. Companies such as ChannelAdvisor, FairMarket and ReturnBuy have targeted the same high-end clients that Accenture will be pursuing. Meanwhile, companies such as Andale, AuctionWorks and AuctionWatch have typically wooed smaller eBay sellers. Microsoft's bCentral also began providing eBay-listing tools to small businesses late last year. Such companies typically provide software tools that help businesses link or list their inventory on eBay and other online auction sites. The companies also typically provide ad templates, help direct customer e-mail inquiries and sometimes help handle fulfillment. With eBay's striving to reach a goal of $3 billion in revenue by 2005, the company has been pursuing big businesses, trying to encourage them to list on its site. Already, companies such as Intel, Eastman Kodak and Dell Computer are selling on eBay. Scot Wingo, chief executive officer of ChannelAdvisor, said that eBay would find more success in attracting big businesses to its site by working with the companies directly and helping them sell successfully, rather than by signing up additional consulting partners such as Accenture. "We feel like the people at eBay just don't get it," Wingo said. ChannelAdvisor isn't afraid to compete with Accenture, he said, noting that ChannelAdvisor has some 50 big business clients, including IBM, Ingram Micro and Handspring. The lower cost structure at ChannelAdvisor will allow it to charge lower rates than the consulting giant, he said. "We've been helping companies do this for two years," Wingo said. "We look forward to competing with them."

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (11365)	5/7/2002 7:18:32 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 57684

Scrutiny for Tech Highfliers LA Times EDITORIAL May 7, 2002 An intoxicating "build it and they will come" mentality led the telecommunications industry to the meltdown that has vaporized $2 trillion in investor funds--so far. The swift demise followed years of heady growth as WorldCom and other highflying companies raced to add long-distance capacity and fiber-optic cable for an anticipated tidal wave of demand from Web-based movie channels, long-distance medical diagnoses and videoconferencing, among other things. Demand was way overestimated, and an oversupply of high-speed digital pipes led to fierce price wars. Low prices are still sapping profits. The telecom story line already includes bankruptcies (Global Crossing with more than $12 billion in debt), SEC investigations (Qwest Communications International) and abrupt leadership changes (WorldCom Chairman Bernard J. Ebbers, who resigned last week). More troubling chapters will be written, but Ebbers seems the perfect example of what has gone wrong. Using his force of personality and a single-minded vision, Ebbers transformed a small Mississippi long-distance company into a telecommunications giant. Ebbers leveraged WorldCom's stock price to fund a string of acquisitions. Then regulators forbade a $129-billion merger with Sprint, and Ebbers' deal-making machine halted. WorldCom was stuck with $30 billion in debt. Many people are feeling WorldCom's pain. When WorldCom sold $12 billion in investment-grade bonds last year, investors lined up for what seemed a safe harbor after the dot-com meltdown. What they got was Mr. Toad's Wild Wall Street Ride; the bonds are now trading at half their initial value. WorldCom already has shed 9,000 jobs. Last month, it announced plans to cut 3,700 more--or 4.7% of its remaining work force. WorldCom won't easily escape Ebbers' shadow. The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating a $366-million loan that WorldCom's board of directors recently granted to Ebbers. The SEC inquiry turned out to be yet another excuse for rattled investors to hang up on WorldCom, whose stock price has plummeted roughly 80% since the beginning of the year. Fate and risk weren't the only forces at work in the telecom bust. The self-serving shenanigans of Ebbers and other telecom executives should have been caught earlier. That's the job of Congress and the Federal Communications Commission, which need to constantly update laws and regulations in the tech world. Fair markets, especially in a swiftly changing business like telecom, depend on well-aimed and -enforced regulation. latimes.com

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (11365)	5/7/2002 9:12:07 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 57684

Oracle's Roberts Comments on Software Spending, Market Share By Ashley Gross San Francisco, May 7 (Bloomberg) -- Oracle Corp.'s George Roberts, executive vice president of North American sales for the world's third-biggest software maker, commented on the outlook for a sales pickup. Oracle, which trails Microsoft Corp. and International Business Machines Corp. in software sales, has had four straight quarters of year-over-year revenue declines. Roberts spoke at the J.P. Morgan H&Q Technology Conference in San Francisco. ``Technology spending for enterprise software remains very soft and doesn't appear to be improving. Visibility is extremely poor. We can't predict when the economy will see an upturn.'' ``Customers are still digesting projects they started over the last several years and continue to be more cautious. Large forward buying is almost non-existent in this environment. We're back to the way people bought in 1997. All the other companies are experiencing the same thing.'' ``We continue to manage the business in an extremely profitable manner in extremely tough times. We are very well positioned when spending patterns return to normal.'' ``We continue to hire resources in lower-cost areas like China and India. Because we have our arms around costs, there's tremendous opportunity for margin expansion.'' On a Gartner Inc. report that said IBM surpassed Oracle in database market share: ``We believe frankly we're not losing real market share. We believe a lot of this is a marketing game people are playing.'' ``We look at customer loyalty and buying intentions. We haven't seen that change at all. As long as we're seeing customers remain loyal to us, we believe we'll maintain our advantage. We still maintain the lion's share in this marketplace.'' On Oracle's accounting practices: ``We're extremely conservative. We changed our revenue recognition policies 10 years ago. We're a cash machine.'' On Oracle's $95 million contract with the state of California: ``You can obviously tell it's an election year in California. They make the statement that nobody is using the software, which is absolutely untrue. Whatever the state wants to do, we're happy to do. It's not a significant amount -- it's $30 million.'' On whether Chief Executive Larry Ellison can manage Oracle while training for the America's Cup yacht race: ``Larry's been very engaged in the business. He has been for years. I don't see any disengagement. I've got lots of things to worry about besides whether Larry goes racing or not.''

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (11365)	5/7/2002 10:05:08 PM
From: Bill Harmond	Respond to of 57684

Manugistics (MANU) 9.11 -4.50: CSFB note says yesterday's MANU analyst day indicated that while the co's May qtr hit mgmt's target of achieving 50% of total revs by month 2 (April), the mix appears to be tilted more toward lower margin services, while license revs are slightly behind with "some deals to close" in the remaining 3 weeks. Firm believes there continues to be some risk going into the last month of the qtr in light of the difficult software environment. Maintains Buy rating... Separately, Raymond James downgrades to BUY from Strong Buy in order to reflect the continued sluggish enterprise software spending environment, which could cause the co to miss consensus May qtr rev and earnings projections... Cuts FY03-04 rev/EPS ests and lowers price target to $13 from $24.