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

To: Kevin Rose who wrote (1240)	3/12/1998 4:52:00 PM
From: Trader Dave	Respond to of 6974

Kevin, thanks for your compliment. I try to be unbiased (even to the point of highlighting the risks of one of my holdings against a hypster - MCRE) The fact that you acknowledge your bias gives me more confidence in what you write. Here's why I try to avoid bias or auguring in: being passionate or emotional can lead to the wrong conclusion. If you are so excited or negative on a story and tell everyone else that, it can set expectations in the wrong direction. No matter my stance on a stock I try to present both sides. That said, not owning sebl in recent months has made me inherently jealous of the missing returns. I also instinctively don't trust tom's style. That said, I might be a buyer of sebl if the merger causes a huge price correction, or if the stock stagnates for a while and the deal goes through and the technologies are integrated. I think this sector has huge growth - which goes back to our comments about this stuff not being a battle to the death for a niche market. I think many companies in this space can prosper - application software is not a winner take all segment like enabling technologies such as operating systems or network infrastructure are. Longer term, siebel is posititioned for solid long term growth as are vantive and perhaps clarify. I have repeated my short term concerns about merger/integration issues. I think the reason that scopus was willing to be acquired and clarify wasn't is relative strength of positioning. clarify has: new product cycle leadership in field service revamped and ramped up sales force new ceo really cool senior technology people :-) scopus has: I haven't heard from the street other than a few comments about departures and lots of resumes, but how much business can scopus close between now and the end of march? Is there any sales rep out there that thinks they could get someone to make a major scopus purchase decision IN FRONT of the prospective merger? TD

To: Kevin Rose who wrote (1240)	3/12/1998 6:08:00 PM
From: Shege Dambanza	Respond to of 6974

...and Shege only on a good day... Hey! I resemble that remark! But I find it amusing that Melissa of all people accuses others of bias. But I'm sure that's just a sales and marketing issue, and Tom Siebel thought about it already. :-) My serious comment on pre-merger thinking is that ambition and greed can frequently cloud better judgement (e.g. AT&T and NCR). It's not like Tom surrounds himself with people who will disagree. Want proof? Visit SEBL offices and observe the obsessively clean, crew-cut, wife-and-kids-at-home look. The business imperative for Siebel to diversify resulted IMO in this hasty move. Mergers sometimes happen quicker than one would suspect. I think I read somewhere (or saw on TV) that the Compaq/Tandem merger came about from a chance encounter between the CEOs of Tandem and Compaq, and was consumated in less than two weeks. Obviously Tandem was already in the mindset to be bought, and Compaq in the buying mode. Re Siebel in particular: there's rumor that Siebel and Trilogy were sniffing around one another a few weeks ago.