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Technology Stocks : Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: H James Morris who wrote (22797)10/23/1998 7:43:00 PM
From: fedhead  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 164685
 
Give me a break. These stocks (YHOO, AMZN, INKT, AOL) have the
potential to increase revenues exponentially the next few years.
No one knows what the fair value for these stocks are. The reason they
are bieng bid up is because no one wants to miss the next Microsoft. Sure they will correct big time if the promises on which these valuations are based fail to materialize. (Look what happened to Netscape or Ascend) Till that happens one has to own these stocks albeit understanding the risks. If High PEs kept you out of a stock you would miss the Ciscos, the Microfts as the great stocks have always been expensive.

Anindo



To: H James Morris who wrote (22797)10/23/1998 7:44:00 PM
From: OtherChap  Respond to of 164685
 
UPC 11830!

Amazing how many companies that kleiner perkins is a primary investor in are under this rule. You'd almost think that the short squeeze is a primary tool they use to manipulate the net stocks, eh? :)

Doesn't matter- within 24 months you'll see the note: "HALTED" beside Amazon, and it will never go away.



To: H James Morris who wrote (22797)10/23/1998 8:06:00 PM
From: Bill Harmond  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 164685
 
>>I'm convinced that you work for Morgan Stanley.

Forget it. I don't. If I worked for Morgan Stanley and posted here all day, I'd deserve to be fired.



To: H James Morris who wrote (22797)10/24/1998 9:35:00 PM
From: Glenn D. Rudolph  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 164685
 
Article 3 of 200
Business
Amazon looks to book its place in the consciousness of
Britishreaders
Chris Ayres

10/20/98
The Times of London
News International
4M
Page 33
(Copyright 1998)



Do not mention the words venture capital to Simon Murdoch, the 37-
year-old managing director of Amazon .co.uk, the British division of the
US Internet bookseller.

Although obviously delighted to be playing a key role in one of the world's
most famous Internet ventures - which yesterday began its first full week of
trading in the UK - he took the job only after failing to secure large-scale
financial backing for his own online book retailer, Bookpages.co.uk.

If Amazon storms the book market within five years - as it looks likely to
do with second-quarter sales in the US of $116 million (Pounds 69 million) -
Dr Murdoch wants the City to know that it could easily have been a British,
rather than American, success story.

"In retrospect I should have got on a plane and flown to San Francisco," says
Dr Murdoch, who studied physics at Cambridge, and went on to gain a PhD
in artificial intelligence from London's Brunel University. "But I believed
the story that British venture capitalists were interested in technology
start-ups."

Dr Murdoch found, to his dismay, that UK investors did not have any
appetite for the kind of small, loss-making Internet companies that made
many Wall Street brokers drool.

In spite of incurring a net loss of $30.5 million during the six months to
June, Amazon is valued at nearly $5 billion on the Nasdaq stock market.
Before the recent global economic turmoil, it was worth nearly $8 billion.

Amazon claims that in the UK there is already significant public demand
for Internet services. This is likely to rise exponentially, Dr Murdoch
argues, as more people get access to the Internet through media such as
digital television.

Over the past six months, Amazon claims that one million people in Britain
have made an online purchase, with books making up 30 per cent of those
sales.

Dr Murdoch became involved with the Internet after joining a team of
Buckinghamshire software developers in the 1980s that traded under the
name of Triptych Systems. The company produced software mainly for
Internet booksellers, and in 1996 Dr Murdoch founded a spin-off service,
Bookpages.co.uk.

He sent business plans to an enormous range of financial institutions, only to
be rejected. In one case, he was told: "We already invest in an Internet
venture." The contrast with Silicon Valley, where Internet entrepreneurs
secure million-dollar deals over light lunches, was startling.

Dr Murdoch instead managed to raise Pounds 1 million from a consortium
of "business angels" in January 1998. Only two months later, Amazon paid
$55 million for Bookpages, plus two other small European Internet
companies.

Amazon .co.uk now threatens to cause havoc in the British bookselling
market, and will compete head-on with the Internet Bookshop, which was
bought by the retailer WH Smith (after the Amazon deal) for Pounds 9.5
million.

Dr Murdoch is already predicting a war over book prices, with Amazon
selling many bestselling titles at a 40 per cent discount to its traditional
competitors.

The service is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and most books are
delivered within two to three days.

Initially, Amazon will offer more than 1.4 million titles, with many of them
being stored in the company's warehouse on the outskirts of London.

The launch of Amazon 's service is likely to be viewed as a profound threat
by small booksellers. They complained three years ago that competition in
the industry would kill them off when the Net Book Agreement was
abandoned.

Dr Murdoch already seems prepared for controversy, but is convinced that
both Internet booksellers and their independent rivals can coexist. This does
not prevent him from launching into his sales pitch, however.

" Amazon really is a whole new concept in shopping convenience for
anyone and everyone," he boasts. "Customers can find and order any books
they want quickly and easily."



Caption: Simon Murdoch predicts a book price war with Amazon selling titles
at a 40 per cent discount