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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (27527)	4/19/1998 4:25:00 PM
From: Terry D	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

Mike - re: But as soon as they see some folks at the office receive pink slips and hear they may be next, the courage to spend what money they do have on Microsoft wanes. CDs suddenly seem like an intelligent choice again. So now you are recommending CD (Cendant)? Or compact discs? Let me know, my refund is burning a hole in my pocket. (And Cendant is burning a hole in my numbers.) td

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (27527)	4/20/1998 11:04:00 PM
From: spiny norman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

Hi Mike, re Y2K "body shop" stocks (i.e. KEA, CHRZ, IMRS, and the like) I was wondering what your thoughts might be on the proper timing to short or buy puts on them. In particular, as a computer consultant on the East Coast I've noticed that rates for mainframe skills (COBOL) have soared vis-a-vis PC languages such as C, Visual Basic, etc. A year ago, I was making $20 an hour more than the average COBOL programmer, now I making 10-15 less, and my wages have gone up! Based I calculated that Computer Horizons, for example had about 80% of its growth come from Y2K contracts, and that these contracts were also higher margin. Also, I was wondering what you think about my theory that ERP stocks are currently Y2K stocks in disguise. I've seen a least one instance where the estimate to fix a COBOL based system was almost as much as the up front cost of a Peoplesoft system, so I suspect that a good part of the growth in JDEC, PSFT, BAANF et al is due to Y2K "sticker shock". regards, spiny