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Technology Stocks : IFMX - Investment Discussion -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Raven McCloud who wrote (10737)	5/8/1998 12:16:00 PM
From: Lou	Respond to of 14631

Positive changes taking place at Informix./Reposter Company recently hired Diane Fraiman from Tektronix Inc. to become vice president of marketing. Despite belt-tightening elsewhere, R&D saw a small increase in spending in the last quarter. "We're not cutting back on R&D or service and support," Finocchio said. IT departments will turn their attentions to the Web. Informix will also base its growth on providing software for building data marts and data warehouses. Informix is also counting on growing its Windows NT business. The company will announce partnerships with several independent software developers and value-added resellers in the NT market at its annual partners conference in San Francisco early next month. Informix is still getting its house in order in Europe. The company has also made an effort to stem the brain drain. Employee head count stayed virtually unchanged at 3,486 between the end of December and the end of March. [Location of the article below] www8.zdnet.com Informix to take aim at high-end Web, NT applications By John S. McCright, PC Week Online 05.07.98 6:30 pm ET NEW YORK -- Look for Informix Software Inc. (IFMX) to have a much higher profile in the months ahead. The database developer, which struggled financially last year, has hired a new head of marketing and plans to assert itself in the Web-based computing and Windows NT markets, CEO Bob Finocchio told reporters here earlier this week. Marketing "is one of the areas where we have to do better," Finocchio said. "Historically, we've been good at selling but not good at marketing." To that end, the Menlo Park, Calif., company recently hired Diane Fraiman from Tektronix Inc. to become vice president of marketing. Since reporting a dismal $149 million loss in last year's first quarter, Informix has rebounded to post a profit of $4.9 million for the first quarter of 1998--its second profitable quarter in a row. Finocchio attributed that turnaround partly to keeping a tighter eye on expense and partly to a new management team and product upgrades. Despite belt-tightening elsewhere, R&D saw a small increase in spending in the last quarter. "We're not cutting back on R&D or service and support," Finocchio said. "We know we have to lead on technology." Today the biggest single driver for database sales are organizations implementing packaged enterprise applications, such as SAP AG's R/3 and Baan Co.'s Baan Series, to solve their year 2000 comuter clock problems, Finocchio said. But after that crisis has passed, IT departments will turn their attentions to the Web, he added. Eventually, the biggest driver [for database sales] will be the Web," Finocchio said. "The use of objects will be driven by the immense amounts of data that are behind the Web." Informix will also base its growth on providing software for building data marts and data warehouses, but Finocchio said his company will not follow competitor Sybase Inc. (SYBS) in offering a data warehouse in a box. Informix is also counting on growing its Windows NT business. Currently, NT accounts for less than 10 percent of sales. The company will announce partnerships with several independent software developers and value-added resellers in the NT market at its annual partners conference in San Francisco early next month, Finocchio said. Informix is not likely to compete directly against Microsoft Corp. in the NT market by concentrating on high-end database applications. Finocchio said this effort at entering the NT space will be better organized than a similar effort launched last summer before he arrived. "Last year the flag was waved but the content wasn't there," he said. "There was some very good PowerPoint going on," he quipped In the past nine months, Informix has overhauled the executive suite Besides a new marketing chief, the company has a new CEO, chief financial officer, chief information officer, head of North American operations, general counsel and head of human resources. Informix is still getting its house in order in Europe, which accounts for nearly one-third of its revenues and was the only region that reported disappointing sales in the last quarter. The company has also made an effort to stem the brain drain that saw some of its best engineers leave last year. One step taken to halt the exodus was to offer stock options to all employees. Informix is also giving bonuses to developers who meet release deadlines and additional bonuses based on the number of bugs reported within six months of a product's release. As a result, employee head count stayed virtually unchanged at 3,486 between the end of December and the end of March. "When I came on board, Informix needed a lot of change in management and needed it fast," Finocchio said.

To: Raven McCloud who wrote (10737)	5/8/1998 12:18:00 PM
From: Robert Graham	Respond to of 14631

Due to the nature of their large buying, I think institutional transactions are at least in part technically driven, whether this is from chart reading, or their desk trader reading the tape to time his purchases or sales. I suspect both type of technical analysis can be involved. Also institutions tend to operate as a group when entering and leaving sectors and companies. This makes monitoring the unfolding technicals more important so they do not get in each others way in causing the price to be bid up in the process when fund accumulation gains momentum. I also see 8 as the support and the Stochs indicating a very oversold status for the stock. I think IFMX will pop up a bit from here. I am surprised at how low this stock went. I did not expect IFMX to revisit 8, so lets see if it stays there. Hmm...I just looked at a quote on IFMX and saw it has moved up 7/16. Lets see if it closes up today. It is a good sign that the traders in the stock are responding to the oversold condition of the stock. When this does not happen, then there may be cause for concern. Bob Graham

To: Raven McCloud who wrote (10737)	5/9/1998 3:04:00 PM
From: Robert Graham	Respond to of 14631

I think institutions approach stock purchases by noting in one way or another the probably range that the price of the stock will take on in the near future. Chart analysis of support and resistance levels would be good tools to use for this purpose. Once the trading range of the stock has been identified, then they would choose a "buy range", where the stock is to be accumulated up to a given price for a target average price. I have seen what happens when the stock breaks out during this accumulation phase. The mutual funds then step up their purchases in hopes of placing the money they have allocated towards this stock. This has the effect of making a breakout of a stock very strong. This is what happened to CPQ. IBM was being purchased primarily by public money along with some institutions, who were both buying and selling that stock. So IBM's strong breakout was not a good example of the short term institutional impact on stock prices. I have been thinking of purchasing Trade Station ($$$) which will allow me to monitor money flow by block sizes through the day in real-time. However, I have not been able to stomach the cost of this software application! Bob Graham