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Technology Stocks : Siebel Systems (SEBL) - strong buy? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Amsterdam who wrote (990)	12/18/1997 10:41:00 AM
From: Clam Clam	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6974

Regarding working at Siebel, their salesmen are producers and most fast-growing tech companies place an inordinate amount of pressure on their salesmen... that is why they make the big bucks. This is the same old cycle; hot product attracts best salesmen, salesmen sell like hell until they get fat and rich. Then their egos grow and don't want to take any more crap so they jump ship and join SI to start trading their own account. Regarding Montgomery Securities, Montgomery uses the system as a contact management system in their investment banking department but their salesmen don't even use the product despite paying big bucks for it. Montgomery is getting value out of the product in that it helps to organize one department but in terms of ROI, it is minimal if not negative. Nobody uses the marketing encyclopedia or product configurator or any of the other fancy items that truly help in the sales process (at manufacturing companies). Aggressive CEO's have been buying into Tom Siebel's SFA pitch as a way to make a sales force more productive and I think that it is great that they are trying to leverage their IT investment into business value. Sometimes it works for their company and sometimes it is a big waste of money. My point is not to show that SFA does not offer ROI, I think it does, but only at certain kinds of companies and only if you pay attention to the 'I' in 'ROI' (price of the system and implementation costs). SFA is real but there is more hype than reality with regards to ROI's, IMHO. Perception is what drives stock prices over the intermediate term however, not reality. The perception is that Siebel is loaded with backlog and 1998 is not only 'in the bag,' but estimates will be soundly beaten. This could be true but sentiment can change and SEBL stock already has a momentum premium built into the valuation. SEBL is $35 now (whoa now $34), could that be Vinik?? If so, it could be a quick trip down to the $20's......