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

To: Melissa McAuliffe who wrote (1205)	3/10/1998 9:53:00 PM
From: Lee L.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6974

I would be concerned about the execution of the Scopus acquistion. Personally, I strongly believe that the Scopus product lines will disappear being replaced by expanded Siebel Sales and Service Enterprise offerings. So as a SEBL customer, I don't care about the SCOP integration because it won't effect me that much. I should benefit in a richer product set -- esp on the service side. I think the SCOP customer should have some concerns. The upgrade to SEBL's product suite will not be seamless. A 'seamless' set of utilities and procedures that move SCOP's datamodel to the SEBL datamodel is impossible to achieve. The technical environment will be completely different. For the SCOP user, the SEBL user interface will be completely different as well. This will be much more than a major release. It's on the same level of converting a PSFT financial implementation to ORCL. I also wonder what Scopus' sales guys are doing right now. I can't imagine that they're still selling SCOP product. What would you tell a potential SCOP customer? I bet that new SCOP revenue has stopped for now. This may be good for SEBL in the long term, but it looks pretty bumpy to me in the near-term.

To: Melissa McAuliffe who wrote (1205)	3/11/1998 9:18:00 AM
From: Notting Hill	Respond to of 6974

I agree with Melissa. Merging the product technically is not the issue. We've all heard of temporary black boxes, etccc. All of this could be viewed as a marketing strategy, in order to bring confidence to both SCOP and SEBL customers. This is not new. I am sure SEBL has hired some consultants or some kind of expert to help them in the PR of this merger. Furthermore, the 2 product line do not really compete. SEBL was getting into the Call-Centre Market, while SCOP was doing the same in the SFA market. SCOP failed in the SFA market because their product Voyager never worked. SEBL seemed relatively successful in the Call-Centre market, but had a great deal to climb in order to compete head to head with VNTV. The merger brings the best of both worlds. As per the product integrating/merging, etc... I am sure there will be some glossy brochures and good stories to tell, all nicely prepared by the extensive SEBL PR machine. So, SEBL is very hot and will probably force VNTV to look for a "parnters". PSFT or ORCL could be interested. What about BAANF. BAANF might be pondering its next move. Its AURM acquisition has not proven anything. The Coda Financials acquisition will take time. But they use SCOP software for the Customer Helpdesk.....

To: Melissa McAuliffe who wrote (1205)	3/11/1998 9:31:00 AM
From: seth thomas	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 6974

>> Whether it takes 18 months or three years isn't so much the issue as what will it mean to the customers when they get it. You're being funny, right? Imagine a CIO contemplating a purchase decision about SEBL or VNTV, and then finds out that whatever he buys will be delayed 18 - 36 months on top of long implementation cycle. He's looking at 5 years! Imagine a CIO who recently made a buying decision to go with SEBL or SCOP and is looking at everything being screwed up for 2 years - his contacts changing, professional services guys changing, less product innovation - I bet there's a lot of upset CIOs and CFOs. You'll see VNTV taking full advantage of this.