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Technology Stocks : The Learning Company (TLC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Irwin Ma who wrote (6023)	11/6/1998 11:48:00 AM
From: Trader Dave	Respond to of 6318

Irwin, Sounds like someone desperate to justify a negative spin. It's not the september quarter that counts stand alone, it's the trend. TLC's 1997 growth came starting in July. TLC's 1998 growth came with its refresh of brod and new title launch starting in September. Just wait until the growth and results in the December quarter. We'll get the first evidence of that in the October PCDATA results. Stagantion in R&D spending? Goodness, it's a pooling and YTD results include all the inefficiencies of multiple companies and redundancies. TLC has over 40% of its employees in R&D. However, what is far more important is that they only need 8 core engines to develop titles. This means that product creation can be far more efficient with less resource. For gosh sakes, this year they're delivering 50 new titles and next year they're releasing 100 new titles! Regarding the balance sheet, look at the trend. It's vastly improved and they are generating great cash flow. It's getting better every day. Sounds like the analyst at cowen that downgraded cisco last month. td

To: Irwin Ma who wrote (6023)	11/6/1998 12:51:00 PM
From: Obewon	Respond to of 6318

Irwin Ma, Not to burst the bubble with regards to Humongous's gains in market share, but their success is derived entirely by the current popularity of the "Blue" franchise much like TLC depends on Reader Rabbit and others. One of the keys to educational market share leadership is controlling the franchise of the characters that are currently hot on TV. Currently Blue and the Rugrats are hot. TLC did this last year buying into the Sesame Street line at the height of the frenzy surrounding Elmo, getting Madeline just prior to the movie release, Rugrats, etc. As long as the company continues to pay up for the new characters as they "arrive", I don't see a major competitive threat. The franchises that TLC owns are usually older but also stronger than others. Who knows where Blue and Rugrats will be in two years but Sesame Street and Reader Rabbit have been proven over time. OB

To: Irwin Ma who wrote (6023)	11/6/1998 12:51:00 PM
From: Thomas C. Donald	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6318

Irwin: Yours is a much more clever spin than Paul could do. Your comparison, however, is not fair. You included the 15 million shares issued to Thomas Lee and associates in the 3Q98 count, while they didn't exist in the 3Q97 count. Since these shares were issued in exchange for debt and not in acquisitions, it seems more appropriate to either exclude them from the 3Q98 count or to add them to the 3Q97 count (even they weren't actually issued until 4Q97). Ignoring the 15 million shares in both quarters, revenues per share were $2.38 and $2.15 for 3Q98 and 3Q97, respectively. Including the 15 million shares in both quarters, revenues per share were $2.04 and $1.75 for 3Q98 and 3Q97, respectively.