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Technology Stocks : Siebel Systems (SEBL) - strong buy? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Melissa McAuliffe who wrote (1530)	5/15/1998 3:27:00 PM
From: still learning	Respond to of 6974

I agree that you raise some interesting perspectives, and this thread can become to bi-polar, but I think the invective starts flowing both ways. All I'm saying is this raises an interesting question: when you make 100% referencability a cornerstone of your positioning, what happens when it (inevitably) no longer holds true? SEBL is nearing the point where that will happen. I would prefer not to wade into the question of LU and CSCO sites. You can argue that point freely if you think that's the central one, but I'd like to hear from some of the SEBL bulls on what happens when/if a couple of customers do announce they're no longer using it? Does Tom shrug it off, or back away from the 100% claim. My bet is he keeps on claing 100% even after it's no longer true. But I suggest that would also be unwise.

To: Melissa McAuliffe who wrote (1530)	5/15/1998 3:55:00 PM
From: Trader Dave	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6974

It's typically a sign of weakness when you have to knock your competition. Then every company in this segment is weak! C'mon melissa, you know siebel is pretty aggressive in attacking competition. Per your comment about what's going on at cisco, I'd love to know. A few comments: I think cisco is running older versions of the Sebl product, release 2 (not even release 3), I've heard for some time of rockiness there...who knows. If there's some kind of dispute, it would be in everyone's best interest to keep it quiet until resolved, i don't think we can get a straight answer out of anyone. I do find it interesting/amusing that the sebl web site has changed. But, Cisco still has open job posts on its website looking for people with Siebel experience. I've also heard very good things about SEBL '98 from folks doing checks on those implementations. I think there's room for multiple players in this segment (maybe even Clarify too, but I'll try to raise that one from the stagnant world later.) Sebl is a master of marketing, if the sebl '98 product is solid, then they should be able to manage through a few customer rough spots. (Yes, I'm still worried about the integration challenges. I still think the best path for sebl would be to dump the scopus product and build an integrated product with one architecture, but they'll have to convince the scop customer base they're not being abandoned.) However, I think vantive's "customer bill of rights" and the related open book referencing is interesting, it's been endorsed by a few competitors and I think it reflects the underpinnings of a class act company. TD