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

To: Melissa McAuliffe who wrote (1933)	7/17/1998 8:02:00 AM
From: Bobo	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 6974

Melissa, I thought that was an interesting response by Graham. He seemed to originally be saying that there were contingent deals when he first explained the DSO issue. But in the QA came up with this payment history story. Almost as if they did put some in the bank for later and was being coy about it. I really could not make a definitive conclusion on it. Do not overlook that the deferred rev only accounted for half of the DSO increase. I think it was a total increase of 30 days. The rest was because of the back-ended quarter. A very strong qtr given the circumstances.

To: Melissa McAuliffe who wrote (1933)	7/17/1998 1:05:00 PM
From: Albert Youssef	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6974

Melissa, Goldman Sachs analyst Rick Sherlund added SEBL to the Recommended List today. The stock was initially rated a Market Outperformer because Sherlund was taking a wait-and-see attitude about the Scopus integration. He liked what he saw last night. Goldman EPS estimates were raised from .42 to .50 in 1998, and from .58 to .70 in 1999. Revenue estimates were raised from 315MM to 380MM in 1998, and from 423MM to 550MM for 1999. About the DSOs, they were attributed to an increase in deferred revenues and to a quarter that was more back-ended due to management focus on the merger earlier on. They're expected to fall back to historical the 80-90 range by next quarter. I agree with your take on the DSOs: deferred revenues are the key to managing earnings and delivering a smooth earnings flow. All the successful software companies do this. I also find it amazing that the company could, with all the distractions of the merger, blow away revenue estimates and still build up backlog. Simply, purely, amazing. - Al

To: Melissa McAuliffe who wrote (1933)	7/17/1998 11:06:00 PM
From: Lee L.	Respond to of 6974

Howard was asked about <dso>, he commented that it had to do with a number of new customers with whom sebl has no prior payment history and they did this in effect to be safe. Nah, that's not why. When cutting new deals, customers are insisting on extended payment terms. So even though customers are committing to large deals, they aren't paying all the $$$ up front. Rightly so, Siebel does their best to get as much money as possible up front, but their customers aren't so accommodating.