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

To: Clam Clam who wrote (1008)	12/19/1997 2:32:00 PM
From: seth thomas	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6974

I think the value of SFA depends greatly on the nature of the product, customer and selling cycle/environment. For example, there's no way my broker at Bear Stearns is likely to want to use and SFA system - he works with a relatively small number of very large and active clients. Relationships are key - although an SFA system can help. But, for a retail broker at Merrill or A.G Edwards, an SFA system could be really valuable. For a call center environment, like Schwab, it's really, really valuable. Anyway, I'm looking at VNTV up 1 1/4 in a very down market - and CLFY and SCOP are not moving. If you look at the operating EPS, it looks like SWRT was acquired for roughly a P/E of 100. Apply the same thinking to VNTV - and you get a stock price of around 85 or some such number. Wishful thinking - but you never know...

To: Clam Clam who wrote (1008)	12/19/1997 6:08:00 PM
From: Lee L.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6974

Siebel is a company built on marketing. As Kevin Rose said many months ago, Siebel runs best on the PowerPoint platform. As is true with many companies products, real ROI takes a back seat to the ILLUSION of ROI. I won't argue that the current stock price is built on marketing. The product, however, is a quality product. It has rich functionality, it's easily upgradable (compared to ERP and packaged systems in general), and it's technically solid. If the CIS market grows as predicted, then Siebel is well positioned to do very well. I don't want to imply that Siebel is free of warts -- far from it. From a customer service and account management perspective, they can be real stupid. The product is solid. If you believe in the potential of the market, then Siebel's worth an investment, IMO.