Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : VOLTAIRE'S PORCH-MODERATED -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RR who wrote (53896)	7/16/2002 4:15:13 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 65232

VERITAS (meets ests) Software Reports Second Quarter Results; Revenue $365 Million for the Quarter Pro forma Earnings Per Share at $0.14 MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., July 16 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- VERITAS Software Corporation (Nasdaq: VRTS) today announced financial results for its second quarter ended June 30, 2002. The Company achieved second quarter revenue of $365 million, compared to revenue of $370 million for the quarter ended March 31, 2002. Diluted pro forma net income per share for the second quarter was $0.14, compared to $0.16 for the prior quarter. On an as-reported basis, including non-cash charges for purchase accounting adjustments of $35 million and losses on strategic investments of $15 million, the Company reported net income for the quarter ended June 30, 2002 of $26 million, or $0.06 per share, diluted. As a consequence of adopting the Statement of Financial Accounting Standards 142 as of January 1, 2002, the non-cash charges related to amortization of goodwill and other intangibles decreased $204 million in the quarter ended June 30, 2002 as compared to the quarter ended June 30, 2001. "Our second quarter performance reflects VERITAS Software's competitive strength and resilience as we deliver solid revenue and earnings results, focus on execution, and continue to play a leadership role in the storage market," said Gary Bloom, chairman, president and CEO, VERITAS Software. "While we continue to position the Company to emerge stronger as the economic uncertainty eases and IT spending improves, we remain cautious in our near- term outlook. Our expectations are for third quarter revenue to be in the range of $350-$370 million and pro forma earnings per share to be in the range of $0.11-$0.13, based on an operating margin of 21%-23%. For the fourth quarter, we expect some seasonal improvement resulting in modest revenue growth from the third quarter and similar operating margins." "In addition to our market leadership, we are also very pleased with the strength of our balance sheet," said Ken Lonchar, executive vice president and chief financial officer, VERITAS Software. "In the second quarter, we generated $146 million in cash from operating activities, increasing our cash and short-term investment balance to a record $2 billion." During the quarter, the company announced the following initiatives that further position the company as the leading storage software supplier and leverages VERITAS Software's unique position as a pure-play storage software provider: -- VERITAS Adaptive Software Architecture, a new cross-platform software and services model that significantly improves IT responsiveness to changes in business and technology and leverages the deep partnerships that help provide heterogeneous support to a broad range of applications and devices. -- VERITAS Powered and VERITAS Enabled programs. VERITAS Powered is a strategic initiative to extend VERITAS Software's storage intelligence to next-generation storage networking hardware platforms by drawing on our deeply rooted industry partnerships. The VERITAS Enabled program is an industry-wide partner program designed to simplify the management of complex, multi-platform and multi-vendor storage environments through cooperative support, deep technology integration and a commitment to standards. Thirty-eight partners, including every major storage vendor, have joined the VERITAS Enabled program. -- VERITAS' storage management software suite is now available on IBM AIX(R), with full support for IBM AIX 5L. This gives VERITAS the broadest platform support in the industry, offering standard storage software across all major open operating system platforms, including Solaris, HP-UX, Linux, Windows and AIX The pro forma statements of operations are intended to present the Company's operating results excluding purchase accounting adjustments and other non-recurring items. The purchase accounting adjustments include amortization of developed technology, amortization of goodwill and other intangibles, and related adjustments for income tax provisions. These pro forma statements of operations are not in accordance with, or an alternative for, generally accepted accounting principles and may be different from pro forma measures used by other companies. The Company will hold a conference call today at 2:00 p.m. Pacific Time, 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time, to review second quarter results and business outlook. The conference call will be available to all investors. The telephone dial-in number for listen-only access to the live call is 913-981-5581. A live web cast will also be available at www.veritas.com. In addition, a telephonic replay will be available on Tuesday, July 16 at 4:00 pm, Pacific Time through July 23, 2002, 10:00 pm, Pacific Time, by dialing 719-457-0820, replay code: 582965. About VERITAS Software With 5,700 employees in 36 countries and revenue of $1.5 billion in 2001, VERITAS Software ranks among the top 10 software companies in the world. VERITAS Software is the world's leading storage software company, providing data protection, storage management, high availability and disaster recovery software to 86 percent of the Fortune 500. VERITAS Software's corporate headquarters is located at 350 Ellis Street, Mountain View, CA, 94043, tel: 650-527-8000, fax: 650-527-8050, e-

To: RR who wrote (53896)	7/16/2002 4:24:01 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 65232

Paparazzi catches Greenspeak in CME pits trying to buy 500 SPX July 800 puts... story.news.yahoo.com

To: RR who wrote (53896)	7/17/2002 2:37:43 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 65232

Stigmatizing Business By Andrew S. Grove Editorial The Washigton Post Wednesday, July 17, 2002 I grew up in Communist Hungary. Even though I graduated from high school with excellent grades, I had no chance of being admitted to college because I was labeled a "class alien." What earned me this classification was the mere fact that my father had been a businessman. It's hard to describe the feelings of an 18-year-old as he grasps the nature of a social stigma directed at him. But never did I think that, nearly 50 years later and in a different country, I would feel some of the same emotions and face a similar stigma. Over the past few weeks, in reaction to a series of corporate scandals, the pendulum of public feeling has swung from celebrating business executives as the architects of economic growth to condemning them as a group of untrustworthy, venal individuals. I have been with Intel since its inception 34 years ago. During that time we have become the world's largest chip manufacturer and have grown to employ 50,000 workers in the United States, whose average pay is around $70,000 a year. Thousands of our employees have bought houses and put their children through college using money from stock options. A thousand dollars invested in the company when it went public in 1971 would be worth about $1 million today, so we have made many investors rich as well. I am proud of what our company has achieved. I should also feel energized to deal with the challenges of today, since we are in one of the deepest technology recessions ever. Instead, I'm having a hard time keeping my mind on our business. I feel hunted, suspect -- a "class alien" again. I know I'm not alone in feeling this way. Other honest, hard-working and capable business leaders feel similarly demoralized by a political climate that has declared open season on corporate executives and has let the faults, however egregious, of a few taint the public perception of all. This just at a time when their combined energy and concentration are what's needed to reinvigorate our economy. Moreover, I wonder if the reflexive reaction of focusing all energies on punishing executives will address the problems that have emerged over the past year. Today's situation reminds me of an equally serious attack on American business, one that required an equally serious response. In the 1980s American manufacturers in industries ranging from automobiles to semiconductors to photocopiers were threatened by a flood of high-quality Japanese goods produced at lower cost. Competing with these products exposed the inherent weakness in the quality of our own products. It was a serious threat. At first, American manufacturers responded by inspecting their products more rigorously, putting ever-increasing pressure on their quality assurance organizations. I know this firsthand because this is what we did at Intel. Eventually, however, we and other manufacturers realized that if the products were of inherently poor quality, no amount of inspection would turn them into high-quality goods. After much struggle -- hand-wringing, finger-pointing, rationalizing and attempts at damage control -- we finally concluded that the entire system of designing and manufacturing goods, as well as monitoring the production process, had to be changed. Quality could only be fixed by addressing the entire cycle, from design to shipment to the customer. This rebuilding from top to bottom led to the resurgence of U.S. manufacturing. Corporate misdeeds, like poor quality, are a result of a systemic problem, and a systemic problem requires a systemic solution. I believe the solutions that are needed all fit under the banner of "separation of powers." Let's start with the position of chairman of the board of directors. I think it is universally agreed that the principal function of the board is to supervise and, if need be, replace the CEO. Yet, in most American corporations, the board chairman is the CEO. This poses a built-in conflict. Reform should start with separating these two functions. (At various times in Intel's history we have combined the functions, but no longer.) Furthermore, stock exchanges should require that boards of directors be predominantly made up of independent members having no financial relationship with the company. Separation of the offices of chairman and CEO, and a board with something like a two-thirds majority of independent directors, should be a condition for listing on stock exchanges. In addition, auditors should provide only one service: auditing. Many auditing firms rely on auxiliary services to make money, but if the major stock exchanges made auditing by "pure" firms a condition for listing, auditing would go from being a loss leader for these companies to a profitable undertaking. Would this drive the cost of auditing up? Beyond a doubt. That's a cost of reform. Taking the principle a step further, financial analysts should be independent of the investment banks that do business with corporations, a condition that could and should be required and monitored by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The point is this: The chairman, board of directors, CEO, CFO, accountants and analysts could each stop a debacle from developing. A systemic approach to ensuring the separation of powers would put them in a position where they would be free and motivated to take action. I am not against prosecuting individuals responsible for financial chicanery and other bad behavior. In fact, this must be done. But tarring and feathering CEOs and CFOs as a class will not solve the underlying problem. Restructuring and strengthening the entire system of checks and balances of the institutions that make up and monitor the U.S. capital markets would serve us far better. Reworking design, engineering and manufacturing processes to meet the quality challenge from the Japanese in the 1980s took five to 10 years. It was motivated by tremendous losses in market share and employment. Similarly, the tremendous loss of market value from the recent scandals provides a strong motivation for reform. But let us not kid ourselves. Effective reform will take years of painstaking reconstruction. Our society faces huge problems. Many of our citizens have no access to health care; some of our essential infrastructure is deteriorating; the war on terror and our domestic security require additional resources. Attacking these problems requires a vital economy. Shouldn't we take time to think through how we can address the very real problems in our corporations without demonizing and demoralizing the managers whose entrepreneurial energy is needed to drive our economy? ________________________________ The writer is chairman of Intel Corp. © 2002 The Washington Post Company washingtonpost.com