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Technology Stocks : Network Associates (NET) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sonki who wrote (1807)	12/13/1997 6:35:00 PM
From: dougjn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6021

Efii. I would not be in too much of a hurry to buy. Almost all holders for more than Friday have got to be loosers. All mo mo money is going out. A lot already has, but probably not all. Plus there will be tax selling on any bounce. I bet it goes a bit lower for those reasons, though it will probabaly also bounce for a while. I don't have deep knowledge of Efii. I do recommend the conf. call. That convinced me there is no dishonesty or lack of candor problem. Basically, I think their earnings will be lousy for Q1 98, flat with Q4, then up a little in Q3, lots and lots next several quarters after that. As you will learn from conf. call their problems were 3. In order of importance: 1) Severe change in Japanese copier co. inventory policies, from 2 months to close to zero, brought on in part by uncertainty, pessimism in Japan; also efficiency mandates [this is temporary, phase shift problem]; 2) product transition, mostly by Efii, party by customers, which includes missed software deadlines by Efii caused customers to hold off on orders; 3) overall sell through weakness in Asia, or fear/expectation of it by copier OEM customers (e.g. Cannon, Ricoh, et. al.) They appear to be maintaining a virtual lock on their business (which is providing software/chip hardware to enable color (and now black and white) copiers to do up to very high quality color printing from PC's on corporate computer networks. They have a major push to expand their business into the lower end which seems to involve some B&W and lower end color printers, and greatly enhancing their capabilities. Their customers include Zerox and all the Japanese copier cos. It seems that the major competitor they worry about is HP, which really doesn't have competitive high end quality competitive systems, but int o whose terrritory they with their copier engine partners are trying to expand. The worry is always of course that some of these OEM entities decide to do the software inhouse, as cerainy HP does, at least as far as basic capabilities are concerned. I do know that their Fiery brand software color servers are regarded as the basic standard for pretty high end color. They do not I think make the very highest end color seperation stuff which the high end magazines, (National Geographic, Arch Digest, etc.) for example, use. Doug

To: Sonki who wrote (1807)	12/13/1997 6:43:00 PM
From: dougjn	Respond to of 6021

Re Neta, what's the basis of your high suspicion? I was fairly impressed to see that they acquired Nuts & Bolts from Helix in NYC (I guess all of Helix??). Nuts & Bolts was reviewed as much better than Norton Utilities (which as you know has dominated that segment for years) by PC Mag. I've rarely seen them do so uneqivocal a review. I'm planning on getting it actually. I've been pretty disgusted w/the way that Symantec's Norton Utilities wants to take over your desktop, w/all sorts of stuff autoinstalled and using cycles whether you want it or not. I imagine Nuts has made limited inroads so far, given marketing realities, but think that the Co formerly known as Mcaf could change that big time. Impressed more as a judgment issue than huge bottom line impact. I'm planning on getting into Neta when I get back into stuff, mkt wise. Which actually I may do soon, planning on selling somtime in January again. I expect that we will see saw up and down between 1) interest rate bullishness, Asia is a long way away, money is pouring in from boomers who are saving and especially equity investing more than US market historical base lines and 2) and massive import deflation, bigger impact than expected from Asian deflation due to longer lasting, more shocks, more countries, and multiplier effects increasing discovered (if Canada sells fewer trees it buys less software). And then there's south Asia, and Brazil's preemptive interest rate recession, and Russia, and.... Doug

To: Sonki who wrote (1807)	12/14/1997 12:28:00 PM
From: dougjn	Respond to of 6021

OT Sonki, re:<<if i were korean i would default too.>> Financial Times, London: South Korea: Who blinks first? FRIDAY DECEMBER 12 1997 South Korea is playing a dangerous game of chicken. Scarcely is the ink dry on last week's $57bn International Monetary Fund rescue package than the country is asking for disbursements to be accelerated. If Korea was implementing the IMF's conditions with vigour, such a request might be reasonable. But it gives the impression of backsliding. So how can Korea hope to get its way? Only because it thinks the IMF will be scared that if Korea defaults on its foreign debt the rest of the world will be dragged down with it. Korea is used to winning its way through brinkmanship, but this time it may be miscalculating. A default would, indeed, have nasty knock-on effects: exposed foreign banks would have to make provisions; the risk premium for other newly industrialised or emerging countries would rise; and the earnings of multinationals exposed to Korea would be depressed. But none of this would cause a global financial collapse. By contrast, the impact on Korea itself would be devastating. Apart from damaging its credit-rating for decades, a default would plunge its economy into further immediate trouble. Financing imports, for example, would become extremely tricky. The IMF should call Korea's bluff and refuse further funds until the country shows it is implementing the programme properly. If Korea does default, at least other countries will know the IMF means business.