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Technology Stocks : Novell (NOVL) dirt cheap, good buy? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Joe Antol who wrote (19591)	1/14/1998 10:59:00 PM
From: dwight vickers	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42771

I heard an independent technology consultant (Roxanne Googin) on CNBC this AM. She had an interesting take on the problems of some large tech firms today. ORCL was one she mentioned most frequently. She feels what is going on is the end stages of a secular bull market in tech, signaled by declining margins not made up by higher sales. The other facet is a slowdown in capital type spending on computer products as more of tech budgets are being spent on Y2K fixes. Not revolutionary thought, but she thinks it's not a short term problem, but long term. I have to admit that I have trouble coming up with a bullish case for margin/revenues, especially in PC's. Lots of competition, and lots of people with machines bought a year or two ago that aren't even paid for, and no need for a faster machine. The average family doesn't do what most on these boards do. PC's may be getting to where TV's were in the early 70's when everyone had bought their color set. Maybe a bad comparison, but my observation (as an adamant non-techie) is that we may be closer than anyone dare thinks to this being a pure commodity business. Dwight

To: Joe Antol who wrote (19591)	1/15/1998 12:47:00 AM
From: Scott C. Lemon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42771

Hello Joe, You stated: > Hi Quad-K: Thanks. And these are the kinds of things I worry > about... > > This IMVHO is gonna hurt them a lot. (A whole lot) > > <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< > Microsoft reverses its NT course > Firm paves NT 5.0 migration path for Ver. 3.51 users. Joe, when I read what you say above, I think that I know what you mean, however I start to wonder if your sentence is not appropriate. You use the word "them" in a way that I could take as Novell ... but I could equally see it representing Microsoft! ;-) What I see here, is a company reacting because they see Novell on the radar again. They are losing their ability to tell the customer what to do. They are starting to experience the power of the customer and the pains of migration. They are making defensive manuevers ... and not in a forward direction. > "We received a lot of heat from the users who just won't budge from > NT 3.51 and we've had to listen to them," Allchin said. I think this is going to hurt them a lot also. They are going to lose a lot of planned revenue ... they thought they could force the two upgrades ... first to v4.x and then to v5.x ... but customers obviously don't see the value compared to their costs. > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> > > I hope they've planned a strategy for this in their war room I know that we have, but I agree with you ... I hope that "they've planned a strategy for this in their war room" ;-) > Regards, > Joe... Scott C. Lemon