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

To: Trader Dave who wrote (1178)	3/5/1998 9:03:00 AM
From: Melissa McAuliffe	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6974

TD, I am hoping that you or someone can answer a question I have with respect to options. If I bought scop options (use July 20's for example purposes only) what happens once this merger is finalized. My initial reaction would be that they would convert into sebl options. But at what price? Assuming that sebl has split before these options expire would I then have .728 sebl options for every scop option as with the stock. I am sure there is a simple answer to this but I am having a difficult time figuring it out. Thanks. Melissa

To: Trader Dave who wrote (1178)	3/8/1998 12:51:00 PM
From: Konehead	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 6974

TD, Great job breaking the rumors (#1124) about possible SEBL acquisition of SCOP. I've been offline all week, but when I saw SCOP up 5 on Monday on CNN I thought "oh no" and figured SEBL had made an offer and would be down several points. While it's nice to see that SEBL has recovered somewhat, I have some mixed feelings about the impact of this deal on SEBL shareholders like myself. On the one hand, I believe SEBL is getting a solid product line and salesforce at a reasonably attractive valuation (given SEBL takes a hands on role in managing SCOP, I think they can do much better than current management). On the other hand, SEBL is acquiring the clear #2 company in customer support- VNTV has left SCOP in the dust, Chuck Phillip's opinions notwithstanding. Also, most importantly, "integrating" these product lines is not possible-- at the level of the tools and the database schema-- without essentially rebuilding the SCOP product. While I am unsure how much integration (between SFA and support) customers actually need, VNTV is going to have a much better story (for the time being) about an integrated approach to the front office. On balance, I think this is a good move for SEBL over the next 9 to 18 months. But it's bound to blunt some of SEBL's momentum in the short-term (compared to what it would have been), and will have a positive impact VNTV over the next 6 to 9 months. (Keep in mind, however, that SEBL's sales momentum is very very high.) Oh, regarding Clam's comments on VNTV's win rate over SEBL. Defining a "win rate" depends on how you define your sample. Every vendor has a different window, depending on which deals they poor their resources into winning. In the same market, I've seen two vendors both believe they have the highest win rates (e.g. Informix vs. Oracle). In slightly different markets (SFA vs. support), this phenomena is even more likely to occur. Frankly, if John Luongo told the analysts that he were winning most of the SFA-oriented deals, I just flat out don't believe that a truly representative sample of large enterprise deals would confirm this claim-- I believe SEBL is handily outcompeting VNTV in SFA.