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

To: Jay8088 who wrote (2237)	10/24/1998 1:05:00 PM
From: treetopflier	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6974

OT ramblings Hi Jay8088. Yes, I see the same kind of movement for SAP. And it isn't TA. No one will ever accuse me of being a chartist. I believe you will see SAP at or below $20 twice in the next 16 months, so be patient if you want to own it. After the millennium, SAPs continued growth is dependent on a lot of things: how many companies are left that need enterprise SW; their R/4 technology and its availability; a real entry in supply chain management; front office offerings; price; flexibility. It isn't BAPIs that will fuel their continued growth. What they do have in their favor is market share, vendor alliances and momentum. What works against them is their technology infrastructure. They are the least flexible product in their market. I believe post millennium SAP will have much more formidable competition from PSFT and ORCL, as well as some new entrants (not really so new) IBM. The day of calling your buddy CIO at the neighboring $1B company to see what he/she bought is over. The day where the big consulting firms steer you into whatever their bench is deep in is also over. There is plenty of consulting available for all these product sets and the consulting houses know they can make about the same amount of $$$ in any of them, even though ORCL is a big consulting house in its own right. Companies will be doing a lot more DD during 1999 and post millenium than they did during the past 3 years where they were under the gun to get something in. Buyers will also be weighting some new things that they might not have been in 1985, e.g. supply chain management, web enabled apps, sales force automation, web commerce interfaces. If you have all these pieces you will score a lot higher in the RFP evaluation. Better yet if they are all your own, rather than piece parts from other vendors. So will SAP see its former highs? I give them a 50/50 chance at best. Will PSFT see its former highs? Yes, provided they are still a standalone enterprise by that time. Someone should acquire them over the next 16 months. Anything is possible. It wouldn't surprise me to see some of these best of breed companies combine forces, e.g. PSFT/SEBL. The wild card in all my price predictions is Greenspan and Co. It wouldn't surprise me to see him continue to cut rates every quarter throughout 1999 to stave off this tech stock crash. He could cut them another 1/2 point in March and again in June and again in September. Small problem here tho. If he uses all the magic bullets in his gun and the world economy doesn't improve, what will he have left to restimulate the economy in 2000 if we DO have a global depression that the Y2K economists are talking about? Hard to kill a really big bear with no bullets. It is a very big gamble. Seemed to work this quarter -- even Cramer has recanted, but I believe the bear market will survive this rally. It wants to last another 16-18 months, minimum, and if he keeps manipulating the market to save these dumb financial institutions the outcome could be much worse. If we crash incredibly hard on or around the millenium it will be much more chaotic and will take even longer to recover from. No safe havens on 1/1/2000. I'd rather be stable at lower levels come that date than teetering on the precipice. ttf