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Strategies & Market Trends : Value Investing -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jurgis Bekepuris who wrote (45476)	11/15/2011 8:49:27 PM
From: J Mako	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 78710

Hi Jurgis, It's all interesting anecdotes! Btw, on the topic of IT services, I've been watching CSC. Do you have any opinion? It's trading at 0.9 P/B even after a $2.7B write-down of its goodwill this year. I know everyone is scared of any defense cut from the Congress.

To: Jurgis Bekepuris who wrote (45476)	11/15/2011 8:57:53 PM
From: Spekulatius	1 Recommendation Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 78710

I agree with Jurgis that ERP (Enterprise resource systems) are extraordinary sticky. Huge outsourcing deals where the outsource typically runs the entire IT of a company are sticky too since they are multi-year contracts (sometimes 10 years +). Software imo is more sticky then hardware (Companies would switch from Dell to HP computers without thinking too much) since it tends to be standardized. I personally have not seen anything related to IBM yet at work but I have seen Oracle and other ERP setups which last probably for ages. Changing an ERP system in a company is sort of like doing a heart transplant on a life body , you don't want to do it unless you really have too. it is also my belief that most other software systems are getting more integrated into the ERP setups, which adds complications and also nice revenues sources for ERP vendors. This is one of the reasons why Oracle is so acquisitive and SAP tries to do everything themselves. The above is all anecdotal (long suffering user :-( )