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Technology Stocks : Oracle Corporation (ORCL) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: hueyone who wrote (17829)	1/15/2003 10:59:15 AM
From: Wyätt Gwyön	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 19079

excellent post, Huey. once you cut through the hype, it is apparent that high tech cos are for the most part lousy businesses that are only marginally profitable.

To: hueyone who wrote (17829)	1/15/2003 11:09:09 AM
From: Hardly B. Solipsist	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 19079

I don't believe that he was trying to say that it was a big rollercoaster that only went up. I believe that investments in technology can make companies more efficient, but they don't make the environment that those companies operate in less competitive; in fact, I'd say it goes the other direction. Oracle says that it saved a lot of money by using its own software, and "critics" laugh and say that they saved the money on layoffs. But that's completely missing the point. Other than not heating buildings by burning wads of cash, making your employees more efficient is the most reliable way of saving money, and that usually means that you need fewer of them. So if anything, layoffs would be an indication of improved efficiency, although I don't believe that this has much to do with the lost jobs around here (except in the general sense that most of the dot-com companies were a total waste of time, so just having the employees do anything else, including being out of a job, is an efficiency gain).

To: hueyone who wrote (17829)	1/15/2003 12:03:42 PM
From: MeDroogies	Respond to of 19079

By responding as you did, you managed to completely support my argument, rather than tear it down. Never, at any stage, did I use my points to argue for excessive growth figures. So you put those words in my mouth. However, what I will say is that software HAS managed to lead to more efficient inventories and personnel decisions. The PROBLEM is that it took so long for them to be implemented PRECISELY because so many people BELIEVED the 20% growth paradigm was legitimate so there was NO NEED to engage in the management that was available. Sadly, now that it is available, it is being utilized with impunity. Still, it is the same technology that caused the 30% growth paradigm and gave us the "good times", that is fixing the problems bad management created and will lead us to more, newer, "good times". Tough times are like a cold shower...sometimes you just have to suffer through it.

To: hueyone who wrote (17829)	1/15/2003 12:22:58 PM
From: Lizzie Tudor	Respond to of 19079

Having said that, I will acknowledge that technology has helped companies manage their businesses, but it also helped the competition manage their businesses, as well as presented many new sets of problems and challenges. The net result is that business remains business; technology hasn't magically made all companies grow faster, earn more, be better managed, and there is no "new economy". You must have been absent in the early 90s/late 80s. This post seems to assume US businesses were never under any sort of competitive threat, they were, from Japan and asian manufacturers which were more efficient than the US in the past. We lost whole industries like consumer electronics in the 80s to more efficient producers. Technology reeled all that business back in on these shores (the part of it that made sense, I understand most mfg is still offshore but it is the cheapest producer), the competition you site is from domestic players which is a healthy thing. Lizzie

To: hueyone who wrote (17829)	1/15/2003 12:42:14 PM
From: MeDroogies	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 19079

On another note, technology has helped improve the management of many companies. However, don't confuse management of business with "The Management". I agree there is alot of bad "Management" out there. However, the line workers will tell you of vast improvements, cost savings or productivity-wise, in virtually every industry. This has translated into better business conditions and led to the bubble. What was not counted on was "The Management" stealing many of those gains via various methods. But the stealing occurred at only a few companies, so I won't use ORCL as a template to describe it. In fact, I wouldn't use 90% of the companies in the US to describe it. The problem is 10% of the companies it occurred at were very high profile, and garnered a disproportionate amount of media attention. It is good that they did, as it makes the other companies clean up their act to an even greater degree. As for the "new economy" not being so new. I'd agree with that. But it has changed dramatically. If anything it is MUCH more competitive now than it was 20 years ago. That requires much more market savvy management, and better systems to managed slight changes in the market. My own industry (media) has improved systems remarkably since I entered it 18 years ago. I remember working with simple pen and paper at the start, and having huge filing cabinets. Then the PC made things better, and now improved sales and supply chain DB's. Even with these improvements, the one "killer app" for media has not been instituted as yet. The one thing, that will lower costs, time frames and improve information is EDI. While it COULD be instituted, it has not yet. After that, who knows what changes lie in store?