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

To: Melissa McAuliffe who wrote (2065)	6/1/1998 6:07:00 PM
From: Trader Dave	Respond to of 3033

I was at Vantive world today, but I bailed before the partner fair started. I was pretty impressed by all the goings on. Longer term I'm not sure I want to see Vantive taken out, I think there's a very good chance that several companies (including Vantive) in the CIS space could hit the $500 million to $1 billion annual revenue mark. PSFT had a big booth at the fair, but a few friends and I all noted with amusement that oracle was a sponsor of last night's entertainment and food. I'll check to see "what's up" with psft/vantive. I think that the big issue right now for the backoffice guys is much more in the supply chain than in the customer asset category. I also think that few people (especially in the investment community) appreciate the degree of complexity and sophistication that is required out of the CIS range of applications. There've been a few rumors spinning about Vantive on the turnover front. Including things like the departure of key executives like David Jodoin. I certainly enjoyed my dinner with David last night, we had a good laugh about the rumors. (He's been promoted to EVP corporate development.) Kathy Murphy was there, and it seemed to me the departure was pretty amicable. Vantive has executed pretty well, but Kathy hasn't had experience in the $500 million to $1 billion range and wants to do another startup. Vantive world was a customer meeting so I could only really pulse customer satisfaction and the degree of partner commitments. Current business pipeline is quite good according to management, but I have no solid information on the quality of the quarter yet. In the enterprise software world you can usually find someone that's moderately upset about something, but I'm glad to say that given Vantive is a customer service software company, their customers are happier than many of the other successful software companies I've seen. Most of them talked about broadening purchase plans by adding new modules and expanding seat counts. The partners such as CATP, several of the big 6 and lots of software companies like trilogy seemed very excited. Next year, I'll plan on spending several days in San Antonio. I just felt the compulsion to head home and watch my portfolio decay in real time. TD

To: Melissa McAuliffe who wrote (2065)	6/1/1998 7:32:00 PM
From: Konehead	Respond to of 3033

My admittedly limited info on the Psft-Vntv relationship: originally conceived to provide a total solution for integrating customer support and ERP/HR, with order entry a critical link. The 2 companies later changed the focus to integrated field service operations due to lack of sales synergy from integrated order entry/customer support. My guess it's possible the companies aren't getting as much sales synergy as they were hoping from their joint activities. Also, I have confirmed that Siebel is indeed facing a challenge at Cisco. The rumors are widespread, so this isn't new news, but I always like getting reliable independent confirmation outside of SI. However, this kind of situation is so far the exception rather than the rule. Siebel needs to make sure its sales promises doesn't get ahead of its ability to deliver. Regarding Oracle & Vantive. Interesting thought. While I really doubt that Oracle is going to acquire their entire front-office product line, I could see them doing an acquisition. They have recently reorganized into front office vs. back office in their apps division, which LJE is running, and are feeling the need to jumpstart apps growth. Add to that Luongo's long-time stint with Larry (he was one of the few senior execs to come out of the 1990 fiasco still smelling clean). OK, pure speculation, but hey, why not?

To: Melissa McAuliffe who wrote (2065)	6/1/1998 9:53:00 PM
From: Trader Dave	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3033

Vantive is also the only front office vendor that is part of the (I think it's called) the cooperative applications integration program CAI. Something like that...it makes sense that Oracle and Vantive would have some interaction in this regard. Oracle does seem more earnest about partnerships lately, but to continue the discussion, does anyone know the size of the largest acquisition Oracle has made? I don't think the Vantive board would sell out for much less than the $45 range, but that's a guess, their ambitions (I hope) could be much higher. TD