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Technology Stocks : Novell (NOVL) dirt cheap, good buy? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Spartex who wrote (24334)	11/19/1998 2:08:00 AM
From: PJ Strifas	Respond to of 42771

Hello! Perhaps I can be categorized as a "cheerleader" and a groupie because as a technogeek, that's what I first knew about this company. When I finally did understand about their situation, I began to look into the "why's and what's" to NOVL's drop to the single digit price range. What I've found was not encouraging until Dr. Schmidt came on board. I've heard the man in person at COMDEX. I've read his interviews. I've looked into his work at SUNW. I'm a believer, he's got vision. Also,I found that people are riding the MSFT bandwagon all the way to the bank. When a train runs that long and that good, it's hard to fault these investors. Here are some things they need to consider in their complacency: 1) SUNW wins an injunction against MSFT. Real world ramifications? MSFT will have to choose a new course of action which has 2 roads. First, they can comply with the SUNW "Pure Java" tests and become 100% Java compatible -- something they DO NOT want to do. OR they can commit suicide (IMHO) by going back to the drawing board and creating their own Java -- something that would have IT/IS people all over the world scratching their heads. This would make MSFT and their precious desktop space an island in a changing sea. 2) NT 2000. There's too much to list here regarding this topic but in brief, this product is way too late and not what they promised. 3) The Internet has really changed the world in ways we don't even see yet. This last item holds much of the future for every software company in the world. Here's the catch, Novell has a product which can literally run the Internet in ways we can only imagine. It's called NDS. I would enjoy explaining why and how but it's not necessary. As companies like Nortel, Lucent, AT&T, Tivoli, H-P, Netsacpe, Oracle, PeopleSoft (this one is BIG), Caldera and IBM jump onto the NDS bandwagon, we'll see more applications and business models to support NOVL. Another angle on this NDS hoopla is the ancilliary ports of this product to tie into other resources beyond NetWare networks. For instance, NOVL has began a public beta of a tool called Novell SQL Intergrator (http://www.novell.com/press/archive/1998/11/pr98139.html) Basically, it presents information from multiple databases (MS SQL, Oracle, SyBase, Informix and IBM's DB2) as if the information resides in one database. This means you can work with information in any database from one location with access controlled by NDS. This is a new market for NOVL to explore, it's called MIDDLEWARE. Then there's the work with PeopleSoft at consulting.novell.com Also, please take a look at this webpage. While the only information I could find on NOVL's earnings for last year were -(0.35), this year they are on pace for 0.25 and next year's target estimate is (Oct-99) 0.46 (http://research.web.aol.com/data/zacks/estimateprofile/n/novl.htm). Now, last year, the stock price was hovering in the $8-9 range. With a nice jump in earnings, the current price of $16 5/16 seems justified. What do I expect NOVL's stock to be when they meet next year's earnings estimate that nearly doubles this years?? $26-$29?? Just some thoughts on why I'm high on NOVL. Thanks for your time!