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Technology Stocks : CheckFree (CKFR) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Will Hou who wrote (1806)	2/19/1998 11:51:00 PM
From: Brooks Jackson	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 8545

Will: What can go wrong? I keep looking. Here is what has occurred to me so far: --PC Banking might not catch on. --CKFR could have an AOL-type service failure. --MSFDC could actually get a product out of beta-testing AND convince bankers that Gates isn't out to eat their lunch AND give the product away for a long time, thereby eroding CKFR's huge lead --Pete Kight could be struck by lightening OR cut out for Rio after implanting a virus in the Genesis engine that diverts every 100th check to his personal bank account. IMO none of these are very likely. If you have other thoughts I surely would welcome them.

To: Will Hou who wrote (1806)	2/20/1998 6:44:00 AM
From: jjs_ynot	Respond to of 8545

I personally think that management has its destiny in its own hands. This is primarily a revenue growth story IMHO. Watch the top line. If CKFR can't deliver year over year revenue growth of at least 100 percent (thus some of the marketing issues); then the valuations start to look rich. Earnings are tough to measure and easy to manipulate in high growth rate companies.

To: Will Hou who wrote (1806)	2/20/1998 7:15:00 AM
From: Roger Bass	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 8545

Will, I applaud your looking for the downside here. Though I own a fair amount of CheckFree (though not by comparison with some), and am bullish on the company, it's always good to try and understand the downside. In these kind of environments, it's easy to fall prey to groupthink, and end up just being blind cheerleaders for the company. (I've seen some other threads where this got very bad indeed). Incidentally, even this intelligent, well-informed thread showed I think some signs of this phenomenon showed up in our collective reaction to the BARS downgrade. So what are the risks or downsides ? Here are a few that occur to me, although I personally don't consider any of them major threats. It would be interesting to discuss further on this thread though, as I think most of us share similar views on what the upside is. 1. MSFDC. A powerful competitor in the bill-pay area, with both the MS brand and clout, and access to the FDR credit card acquisition business relationships. You could even think of some kind of leverage of the Microsoft desktop, but I have a hard time seeing this happen for real given all the other constraints. 2. Credit card players. The embryonic e-billing business so far is based on billers with big, monthly billing runs. E-commerce may over time generate larger transaction volumes based on (virtual) point of sale payments, rather than deferred bills, at least for consumers. This could allow other companies to become powerful in this space (card-oriented players being the obvious ones, though other, new payment methods could evolve and become big). Those businesses could even then conceivably use that base to attack some of CheckFree core business. 3. Banks. Banks could come to fear some forms of disintermediation from CheckFree and see them as a competitor in some areas as they become more powerful. They could then seek to build or establish competition to CheckFree, or otherwise limit their profitability. (This has happened to some extent in the credit card business, in that some banks may regret how much they gave up to the FDRs of this world. They haven't managed to do a lot about it though). Can't think of too many more for now, but would welcome any more 'bear scenarios' for the company. Regards, Roger.