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

To: Lee L. who wrote (1165)	3/3/1998 7:52:00 AM
From: investorgal	Respond to of 6974

Lee, Thank you for a clear view on this. Your Informix comparisions are most appropriate. If you look at the Informix integration with Illustra you will see that was 1 1/2 years behind plan. As you noted, integration of separately developed products is not easy. Isn't it interesting that the CFO of Siebel was the CFO of Informix and the structure of the deal is similar to the Illustra acquisition? As for the track record of integration, excellent point. If it will be successful, Tom will need to let someone who has done this before run the integration show (technically and culturally). His ego will have Scopus people heading out the door faster than he can replace them. You are right about an exploding market forgiving some sins. But if the plans are not executed properly, the exploding market implodes very quickly.

To: Lee L. who wrote (1165)	3/3/1998 9:20:00 AM
From: Trader Dave	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6974

Thanks for the user perspective. Although i have concerns the "exploding market" is a major point. I am not arguing that there will be one survivor in this space, there's likely to be a few. Siebel clearly has a lot of business momentum and 1x charges may allow them to mask over many bumps in the road. I think the market size in this space is as large as the OLTP space. Moreover, I think the business impact on the customer cycle is more strategically important than reducing production costs a few points. I don't think siebel is a bad company at all, but we do have to watch for bumps in the road. RE: the CFO being xIFMX -- Hopefully, he has learned from his past mistakes and won't be doomed to repeat them. (I don't know anything about his moral/ethical standing.) TD