Rod, since you are not very happy with Borl right now, I thought I give you something to read.
Sam has asked me to share my private message to him with the thread. This is not a recommendation. And I'm 100% biased toward the upside. In addition, I don't have a whole lot of knowledge about enterprise stuff, so read it for entertainment purpose only.
Hi Sam,
Wow, I'm impressed with the work you put into this analysis. That makes me feel comfortable knowing that you make your own decision and won't be influenced by me. I can talk freely and perhaps you can counter my points freely also. I'd appreciate that very much.
1) I've looked at the chart you sent, and it's correct that it shows a symmetrical triangle on the daily chart. But I was talking about the monthly chart (I used SI chart) and when you crunch symmetrical triangle on the daily chart together, you get a diamond on the monthly chart. If you already looked at the monthly chart and didn't see it that way, then that's OK too. By the way, I see it break out on the upside, that's my bias.
2) Even though you're cautious with Bollinger's chart, I saw a positive development with the bands squeezed together, something I've hoped for several weeks back. I'm happy to see that. Squeezed and up she goes.
3) I think that there's little downside risk because all the weak hands have left to chase internet stocks and MSFT and the rest. That was the selling when it hit 10. I think that we'll stay at 9 for two weeks until the report. Honest. That's my belief. And we'll find out soon enough.
4) I don't see much downside risk because the stock is only 3 dollars from the going out of business price at 6. That low was made around Dec 31, 1994. Back then the Lotus lawsuit was overhanging the company and talks of company going under were everywhere.
5) The reason the stock is at this price because the street doesn't view tech acquisition kindly, especially with Borl track record of OEC. But that was done before Del came on board. With Roger Sippl as CTO, this is a very different story. I take Sippl acceptance as a significant confirmation of good integration. The main reason that
this stock is below 12 is because the street question what's Borl going to do with VSGN. People are jumping ship to Iona, BEAS, etc. Shouldn't we be concerned? I'm not. John Solder's post said that his VSGN contact said that they blew away their numbers. I'd say that it's a big market and Borl will get a piece of the action.
6) It's human nature to give too much credit to ones (such as MSFT) and too little credit to others (BORL). The loser(BORL) always have to prove themselves. I think it's overdone. Delphi despite its superiority doesn't have the market share of VB or VC. At the job site I am at, another Delphi programmer gave a 2 to 1 efficiency rating of a Delphi programmer v.s. a VC programmer. I sit next to a VC programmer and I agreed that the number is conservative. In a tight programmer market, Borland tools are worth something more than the credit they are getting.
7) It used to be that when Boeing picks a technology, you can bet on it. Boeing picked Paradox as desktop databases when Borl was riding high in the DOS market, subsequently, Boeing dropped Paradox for Access and started going to NT in '95. They also picked Oracle in the early '90 and Oracle went through the roof. Anyway, Boeing picks Iona. I felt bad, but you know what? Boeing probably doesn't want to deal with Borl, having been burned in the past with Paradox, etc. Now I don't care that Boeing didn't pick VSGN. Due to proximity to MSFT (15 miles away) and the desire of MSFT to do whatever it take to get Boeing on board, Boeing is in bed with MSFT. Naturally, Boeing will not pick Borl. But it's a big market for CORBA, so the big one got away, but it never meant to be because it's not about technology. Besides, Boeing is not infallible. They screwed up big time with their airplane productions last year and took hundreds of millions (if not billion) dollars loss. I'd say that by being in bed with MSFT, they screwed up on this one too, just as they screwed up on choosing VB/VC as their development tools. You have to be rich like MS to develop with VB/VC.
8) Speaking of Boeing, they were running LAN Manager before switching to NT. I've always felt that NOVL made a big mistake by not doing whatever it take to get them on board. NOVL should have let Boeing run Netware for the entire company for a licensing fee of $1. This would have been a major thorn in MS side and the advertisement that NOVL gets would be worth a whole lot more than what they give away. Come to think of it, Borl should go back and do whatever it take to get Boeing on board, including giving away the licensing side of it.
9) Iona and BEAS runaway success? But they don't have the tools. You
just wait. They may take some market share away for now, but when Borl rolls out their enterprise tools later this year, they are going to make this open standard multi-tiered development much easier with Delphi, BCB and JBuilder. That's what I read between the lines of what Sippl had to say. Sippl didn't just merge for the fun of it, Borl had the parts to make his vision come true. And if they are smart, they will keep their middleware open.
10) I was very concerned about VJ++ 6.0 two weeks ago. But I now realized that MSFT won't have that out until later this year. And by then it's their 1st version of what I call Delphi with Java as the underlying language. It will still be slow and if you're not going to be cross platform, the real Delphi is still faster and will be kicking butts with version 4.0 soon. By the time VJ comes out, Borl will have Delphi with CORBA for Enterprise. Besides, the review I read said that VJ++ is very slow. So if ones want to sit around and wait for VJ++ because it's MSFT product or be kicking butts using Delphi, my vote is Delphi. The market may dump Delphi, but some won't and some will use Delphi for Enterprise with built-in CORBA, COM and DCOM. I think there's no contest in the enterprise because VJ++ will be Windows only. My speculation is there will be market for Delphi/BCB. Of course, there is no question about JBuilder and the whole WORA issue. That one is not going away.
11) The middleware market is just starting to get into the high growth mode. Borl will have the best tools with good support for AS/400, SAP, Oracle, etc. I think that they'll do well.
12) I've spent a lot of time developing the Microsoft story on Borl
thread. I think that it's very significant although I have not come out and stated it directly. If the market perceive that the government will not allow MSFT to drive everybody else out of business, second tier such as NOVL, BORL and as you've already witnessed it in Apple, will come back strongly.
13) For many years, rumors of Borl as a take-over target were
reported. I even bought into it myself. It took me years to come to
a recent conclusion that it didn't happen because of MS monopoly. Who
would want to buy a business that will be buried by MS monopoly? I
believe that as MSFT being curbed and the market perceived that the
government is serious this time, companies like Borl and others will
become good takeover targets.
14) The market still think that DOJ v.s. MSFT is business as usual.
They are wrong. Back in '95, Anne Bingaman didn't have the support of
the Senate. Things are very different now with MS market cap of >200B which make them the second largest market cap after GE. They are not some unknown, unrecognized geeks that sell little packages of software. The government created the Internet and the government doesn't want a company, any company, to own the major commerce channel of the next century. MSIE4 and the way MSFT reorganized the company by combining Windows and Internet products under one division shows how serious the Redmond gang is going to leverage their OS monopoly. Sorry boys and girls, it's going to be major headaches when they collided with the US government. Note that I said US Gov, not just DOJ. I think that Washington powerhouse have already decided. The confirmation I was looking for is in the post a few weeks back where I noted that no one from the Clinton administration will be attending Bill Gates' CEO summit. This is a major kiss-of-death. The Washington insiders know in advance what's going to happen, if and when.
15) I see Borl run up to $25 (on its own) with a buyout target of $45. And if there's no buyout, they can hold their own and go up from there.
16) Ghassen's call on Borl to tank before earning. Well, it already did by not participating in making the new high with the market. I don't think there's any room on the downside here. I think that the market is just waiting to see the result of the merger. And from everything that I saw and told you, I only see it going up. So I'm hopelessly biased. It's going to be dull, dull, dull until the report.
Sorry, for the long winded, but I gave you just about everything I know and think about this company. I hope I'm not all wet or living in a dream land, because if I am, the market will pound me in the head anyway. Thanks for reading. |
