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Technology Stocks : Ascend Communications (ASND) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jeff Jordan who wrote (29887)	1/9/1998 9:11:00 PM
From: username	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 61433

<burned so many times on market orders> Hey Jeff! Interesting how everyone learns that lesson at some point. I got spanked real bad last month on a market order, a 5 dollar deal that they decided I should pay 5 and a quarter for, (NYSE!). aaaarrrggghhh! Limit orders suck too. I think they should make something called a "super order" or "deluxe order" where you get 5 minutes to confirm or cancel. Let's send Gary K. over to the NASD, I'll bet he can get in! Hey, your brother was talking to your best girl while you were at the cafeteria, no lie. pete

To: Jeff Jordan who wrote (29887)	1/10/1998 9:42:00 AM
From: Russ 5150	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 61433

Jeff, Kinda funny. I placed an order to sell @ 28 early friday morning before I went to work. I checked mid morning and it had been tripped. While at lunch, I placed an order to buy it all back @ 26. Came in to the office a little before market close, low and behold the sky was falling. Called in again and had it all back @ 26. Pure luck, but it also was one of those gut feelings. It appears I do better when I'm not sitting in front of the screen all day. Good luck monday, 5150 P.S. I can't believe I am saying this, but good call 208.

To: Jeff Jordan who wrote (29887)	1/10/1998 10:53:00 AM
From: George Coyne	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 61433

Jeff, I agree about market orders. I'd rather put in a limit order at the last trade price. Market order ONLY if I gotta have it NOW! G. W. Coyne

To: Jeff Jordan who wrote (29887)	1/10/1998 10:05:00 PM
From: Glenn D. Rudolph	Respond to of 61433

Corporate Buyers' Survey – 6 January 1998 2 Questions and Answers Budget Outlook What was the growth rate in your IT budget in 1997? Average: 6.5% Relative to your initial plans, did your IT budget grow faster, the same, or slower than expected. Faster 30% Same 56 Slower 14 As we've seen the past few years, most changes to spending plans were toward the upside. Reasons included company growth, network enhancements, and new applications such as SAP and Microsoft Exchange. Cuts were driven by mergers and “mandates from above,” whose cause we can't determine. Have you completed your budget for 1998? Yes 72% No 28 If yes, will your budget be up, flat, or down from 1997? Up 72% Flat 20 Down 8 What will be the change in your budget? Average: 7.0% Will the growth rate be faster, the same, or slower than 1997? Faster 50% Same 26 Slower 24 Almost three-quarters had a good sense of their budgets for 1998—the view is generally favorable. The 72% that indicated an increasing budget was well above the 50% that said the same a year ago. The average budget gain of 7% points to modest acceleration as does half of users looking for faster growth versus entering 1997 versus 38% entering 1997. Reasons for faster growth in 1998 included Year 2000 spending, additions to staff, and network investments. Slowing was mostly attributed to strong outlays in 1997, such as the completion of large projects. We are somewhat concerned that capital spending will slow down. The user view is optimistic with the caveat that spending patterns will be a bit different as described in the next questions. Rank the following from best to worst in terms of expected spending growth: 1. People 2. Servers 3. Networking 4. Software 5. PCs 6. Services 7. Mainframes The big surprise was that the investment in people, after years of stagnation, looks to increase. Finding good people to implement internet/intranet applications and make Year 2000 fixes has become a frequent CIO complaint. Consequently, a good part of the planned budget increase may go toward staffing where in previous years the dollars went for hardware and software. Networking, software, and personal computers edged down the rankings from last year. Servers again came in second, signaling solid big box demand. The exception is mainframes, which again brought up the rear. What percentage of your budget went to Year 2000 in 1997? Average: 7% What percentage of your budget will go to Year 2000 in 1998? Average: 12% To become Year 2000 compliant, what percentage of your applications are you: 30% Rewriting 55 Replacing with client-server software 15 Retiring The Year 2000 was mentioned as the most important issue in 1998 by a large margin. Y2K as a percentage of budgets looks to rise from 7% last year to about 12% this year. Over half are dealing with the problem by moving toward compliant software and server systems, a boost to our server vendors. An important question is whether at some point in the year, users shift spending away from client-server solutions because they take too long to implement. On a scale of 1-10 (10=extremely confident), how confident are you that your company will be ready? Average rating: 9.1 Will Year 2000 spending be incremental, or will it crowd out spending in other parts of the budget? Incremental 70% Crowd out 30