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Technology Stocks : Oracle Corporation (ORCL) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tech Master who wrote (6560)	3/25/1998 10:06:00 AM
From: Kevin Yang	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 19080

For what it's worth, looks like MSFT is giving ORCL some credit. But MSFT has a habit of playing down expectation after reporting good earnings.. From briefing.com: ... Microsoft announced in conference call that it expects to beat street estimates for the current quarter by 10%... Street had been looking for a gain of $0.44... Sees Q3 revenue growth of 17%-18% over last year... Then went on to say growth over next few quarters will slow and that it faces increased competition from Oracle, Sun and IBM... Also noted that Asia remains weak but no evidence of accelerating weakness... But street pooh-poohing cautionary comments as typical Microsoft... Stock up nearly 4 points in after hours trading at 88 1/4.

To: Tech Master who wrote (6560)	3/25/1998 11:01:00 AM
From: SCourt	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 19080

I agree this is going to be a good quarter, but from some of the Ray Lane interviews I've read and from the conference call, I get the impression that management's plan is to spread higher earnings across several quarters to avoid another "bubble effect." In other words, I think the plan is to use this very good quarter to balance out some of the future lesser ones so that Wall Street expectations don't get over-inflated again. In a recent interview with Lane, he stated that Oracle could have very easily chosen the quarter before last to realize earnings that would have presented a better EPS to Wall Street and thus saved the horrific downslide in stock value. I don't think Oracle expected the reaction to be so violent. Did anyone see what's happened in the last several weeks with some tech companies putting out earnings warnings and their share price actually rises a little (3COM comes to mind). It just goes to show you that the first one (Oracle) gets buried while the ones who follow get a mild "slap on the hand." Still, I agree with Tech Master that $40 in 90 days is very possible barring any marketwide effects such as inflation scares or across the board corrections. However, the fact that so many companies in different sectors are consolidating is a very healthy sign when value is being more and more questioned.