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Technology Stocks : PSFT - Fiscal 1998 - Discussion for the next year -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Elmer who wrote (3165)	10/22/1998 1:29:00 PM
From: Melissa McAuliffe	Respond to of 4509

David, I know this wasn't addressed to me but I am following itwo today also. If the stock price today is any indication, it doesn't look good. But then again, PSFT went up before earnings and look what happened. ITWO got downgraded by Soundview today. Nice of them to wait before the day or earnings. Actually, Rick Sherlund of GS earned my respect for his call on PSFT. But I don't know about Soundview's credibility and/or track record. Melissa

To: Elmer who wrote (3165)	10/22/1998 2:53:00 PM
From: Lizzie Tudor	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 4509

SAP froze the market. Is that over? Re: SCM, well first let me say that where I live Sap doesnt have nearly the stonghold that they apparently do everywhere else - Oracle is right down the street so a lot of big companies went with Oracle apps, ex. Cisco is Oracle apps. Also I saw Dell toss Sap when I was there. So my personal exposure is not pro-Sap. Having said that, Sap has clearly caused damage in the SCM business. They created a lot of fud in their installed base and in some cases promised the customer the SCM product line for free or a very reduced rate. Obviously something is not quite right with Sap business either if they are doing that - nothing was free from any ERP 2 yrs ago. The problem I have with this "Sap is killing us" excuse is 1) Sap is not a gorilla in the sense that Intel or Cisco is a gorilla, there is a lot of non-Sap business out there especially for I2 which is sold with Oracle, and 2) People seem to think that the enterprise software mkt is like other sw markets and the only way a company can see slower growth is if another vendor steals if from you - the old netware v NT scenario. ERP software otoh works on an 8 year cycle... once a company implements, thats it, they dont want to do it again unless some new technology offers sweeping enhancements etc. We started this most recent ERP cycle in 1994 and there is just no way growth can continue at that galloping pace forever + the y2k and shortage of personnel have decelerated things a bit. OK, so if you assume that growth will slow for these companies, which is what I think, then the question is how much of a slowdown, and what is the stock worth. As a said y2k is depressing things, and the stocks are really depressed imo, they have to go up from here. But, you need some kind of catalyst for a share price rise, and I dont see that happening in 1998. I believe it will happen in mid-1999, when analysts see increased revenues on the horizon post-y2k along with guidance from the company. Thats why Im going to bottom fish for the end of 1998 and then hold on through 1999 with an expectation that a year from now psft will be about $45/share? Just a gut feel. Michelle