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

To: lml who wrote (6767)	4/4/1998 6:01:00 PM
From: Richard S	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 19080

First let me thank you for your response and note that you are entitled to your opinions as I am to mine however absurd you think they sound. In order to shorten the length of my response I have broken it down into 3 responses based on the questions we have been discussing. Statement 1: (clarified) "I don't think that Oracle and Sun have much of a chance against Microsoft - Compaq or IBM" I am talking about 3 factions: 1. Microsoft-Compaq targeting companies with less than $2 billion in sales 2. IBM targeting companies greater than $2 billion in sales 3. Oracle - Sun - trying to figure out what to target My interpretation of Oracle/Sun Strategy: Current strategy is to maintain share in smaller companies with Oracle 7.3, 8.0 database (formerly Oracle for Workgroups). Yet pricing is currently not competitive with Microsoft SQL Server. Trying to penetrate global marketplace - particularly Western and Eastern Europe - to build stronger bonding to Oracle brand products. Trying to increase market share in Manufacturing companies with Oracle application products. Price margins are much lower on these than the database products. Main competitors: SAP, BAAN, Peoplesoft. Main focus for Oracle is still on NC technology. Working to demonstrate the total cost of ownership advantage of centralized (aka IBM) versus decentralized (aka MS) computing. In order for Oracle to survive they will need to take market share from either IBM or Microsoft as their market share in applications will continue to erode due to competition from SAP, BAAN, Peoplesoft. Therefore IBM is not in Microsoft's camp rather they are on the other end of the field. Or to look at it another way IBM and Microsoft are like two semi-trailers driving down the expressway when they happen upon the ORACLE-SUN VW bug that gets smashed between the two of them. Microsoft's partnerships are much stronger than Oracle. Witness the inclusion of MS Explorer in DELL, COMPAQ, GATEWAY PC's and adopting it as a standard interface for the internet on AOL (to name a few). Most PC- based companies are in the Microsoft Camp. They also stand the most to lose if NCs are adopted. The only companies that are really interested in NC's are SUN, Netscape, Oracle and IBM and perhaps a few others. My point about the Merced chip and SUN is that I believe SUN is keeping it's options open. If Oracle (or Larry)doesn't succeed with his NC strategy then SUN can jump sides to the Microsoft camp.

To: lml who wrote (6767)	4/4/1998 6:39:00 PM
From: Richard S	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 19080

Statement 2: "Oracle doesn't offer an integrated solution" An integrated solution requires consideration of hardware and software issues. Total cost of ownership will be less if one vendor can provide a total system that ensures few compatibility issues. MSFT is not competing with BAAN, PSFT, SAP but ORACLE is. That is ORACLE's product line. MS Windows NT is outselling any other networking operating system. The government has done nothing to stop Microsoft and it is doubtful they ever will. This is just a political move by Orin Hatch (from Utah) to attack Microsoft because Novell is in his home state. What is this migration to the network you are talking about? I don't understand your logic. IBM bought LOTUS and their desktop products are alive and well. So they have not virtually vanished. You just don't work in an IBM shop. What is this new interface your talking about? Is it a browser by any chance? How does this benefit ORACLE? Unfortunately open standards have been around for most of my life, and they continue to be less than open. One company's products still dominates the marketplace to determine what the standards are going to be. Witness (in software) the "open" standards with FORTRAN, C, SQL and now JAVA. None of these are or will ever be totally OPEN. Sounds like your expounding phrases because you lack understanding of the material involved: "the network is the computer". Sometimes a computer is just a computer and a network is just a network. What OS are you talking about??? Microsoft has a stronghold with NT. Therefore it sounds to me like all you do is toss out remarks about how great SUN and ORACLE are but with with no meat to it. Where's the beef?

To: lml who wrote (6767)	4/4/1998 7:02:00 PM
From: Richard S	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 19080

Statement 3: "Microsoft will also introduce a data warehousing product targeting Oracle's core database business" First of all I do not think that Oracle will cease to exist just that it will become a smaller company with a focus on applications. They will then compete directly against Peoplesoft, SAP and BAAN. Microsoft will not be in the picture unless they acquire one of the other 3 companies. Oracle's core business is the database business. That is their cash cow and provides the greatest share of their earnings. Without it their earnings will continue to erode. Oracle's ability to sustain an advantage in that market will depend on its ability to successfully develop applications. That has never been a strong point for them but that may improve. What scalability issues are you referring too? SQL Server database scales to the terabyte range and Windows NT 5.0 will become a defacto standard for networking and server operating systems. Both of these products are due out 3rd quarter of this year. Watch Oracle stock drop then !! Do you have any understanding of what data warehousing and data marts are? Not sure you do. Much of this development is being put on hold because tools are still being developed and the costs of development are very high. Data warehousing is an iterative development process and requires a great deal of time and effort to maintain currently. Many companies have put these type of projects on hold until after Year 2000 issues have been dealt with. Therefore Microsoft has a good chance to succeed in datawarehousing area.