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Technology Stocks : Vantive Corporation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Amsterdam who wrote (1970)	5/3/1998 12:13:00 PM
From: Clam Clam	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3033

Agree with your points entirely. I think because SCOP, CLFY and VNTV all burst onto the scene at one time, it diluted the revenue opportunity relative to SEBL in SFA. However there is something special that SEBL has done which nobody else has mastered; getting the HUGE deal by selling to the VP of Sales rather than IT people. Siebel knows how to do this, they just don't have anything competitive to sell other than SFA and seat prices are going to look pretty steep if you are only getting SFA functionality (even SEBL SFA functionality). The chances of a SEBL stumble are not insignificant. Front-office software is notorious for poor ROI. Because of this, VNTV can probably grow at a nice clip but hypergrowth might not be in the cards. If hypergrowth does come back to VNTV, it will be a huge winner but for now, I have more modest expectations. I do not believe PSFT will buy VNTV but a tighter relationship sure would give me more confidence.

To: Amsterdam who wrote (1970)	5/5/1998 9:08:00 AM
From: investorgal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3033

And Sebl just announced another large win at Motorola. These guys don't seem to go for the small deals. Or more likely, they tell a prospect that if they aren't spending a certain amount of $$$$ to not waste their time. It's a qualifier. VNTV is probably not doing that. Again, people may make fun of the "culture" at SEBL, but these people are trainined and disciplined in how to sell. It apparently is working for them. Maybe VNTV could learn from it if they want to compete in the SFA market at that level.