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Strategies & Market Trends : The New Economy and its Winners -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (14567)10/27/2002 1:53:21 PM
From: Lizzie Tudor  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 57684
 
I looked into i2 and manu again this weekend after the pop on friday... it looks like i2 has actually become a more compelling value than manu now.

i2 positives

-Revenue still over 110mm/qtr, not bad, and licenses were 30mm. License revenue is actually increasing over last qtr.
-i2 has almost 500mm in cash and st investments, current mkt cap a 50% discount to cash.
-they appear to be diversifying out of tech and discrete mfg which in the past was their entire mkt (thats why they crashed so badly)... manu had CPG (retail, grocery) and anything without a bill of material.
-tech and discrete as customers might be rebounding anyway.

Leading Spanish Grocery Retailer Caprabo becomes the First i2 Customer in Europe to Adopt Integrated Solutions for Merchandise Optimization
biz.yahoo.com

This is the type of product (pricing optimization) that manu was successful with. But reading the PR closely makes it look like i2 hasn't finished the R&D yet. Good to see at any rate.

Xavier Argente, Managing Director of Caprabo, states that "the retail industry has been lacking an integrated IT solution which supports and optimizes the key decisions in the retail business regarding assortment, price, promotions and supply chain management. After a thorough evaluation, we concluded that i2, with its proven capabilities and clear understanding of the issues, is ideally positioned to become the retail industry standard solution."

i2 negatives

-Unprofitable
-430mm share float, they need a 10:1 reverse split in order for the stock to do anything
-I have a fear that with Sidhu at the top again, too much of the company will be outsourced to india, thats how manu kicked i2's butt on EPO... outsourcing development severely restricts new product vision imo.
-no insider buys (same for all software)

The manh numbers and warburg Pincus interest in manu really sparked this sector last week, but the truth is, there is no meaningful recovery in supply chain yet. Otoh it looks like we've seen the bottom, and even now i2 is doing 450mm/year, not bad. (manu doing about 1/2 i2). Things won't return to the 500mm/qtr we saw in the past, much of that was b2b marketplaces and additionally the low hanging SCM fruit has been taken by the ERPs (SAP APO product for example). I'll wait for the cisco numbers or another tech bellwether and if the bottom hasn't fallen out start buying back in. Lizzie



To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (14567)10/27/2002 6:03:23 PM
From: hmbsandman  Respond to of 57684
 
One was IT in a non-tech shop. The other was from a headhunter, who carefully hid the name of the company, but it seemed like a startup software company (Yes, a couple are still around apparently)
People are starting to find jobs again, its just a whole lot harder than before. Folks I know in tech companies are complaining more and more about being short-handed. Customers are bitterly complaining about being woefully behind the tech curve. I think when the profits do start coming in there will be a big burst of hiring.
Then we all can go back to complaining about the traffic! I for one am looking forward to fighting my way down 101.

Sandeep Cariapa