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Technology Stocks : Comverse Technology -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mark Ambrose who wrote (590)	12/2/1998 9:45:00 PM
From: Beltropolis Boy	Respond to of 1331

Comverse Technology Inc. Raised to 'Strong Buy' at First Albany Bloomberg News December 2, 1998, 11:01 a.m. PT Princeton, New Jersey, Dec. 2 (Bloomberg Data) -- Comverse Technology Inc. (CMVT US) was raised to "strong buy" from "buy" by analysts Michael W. Riffle and Herbert L. Tinger at First Albany Corp. The 12-month target price is $75.00 per share. The EPS estimates for Q4 were raised $0.04 to $0.63, and 1999 EPS estimates have been increased to $2.77 from $2.60.

To: Mark Ambrose who wrote (590)	12/3/1998 12:19:00 PM
From: Beltropolis Boy	Respond to of 1331

via globes. ----- High Tech News Comverse: Lucent Can Only Be Jealous By Adi Mendelson In the past week, the Comverse share has woken up, rocketing 20% and reaching $60. It is now clear why. Yesterday, Comverse published an excellent financial statement indicating continued accelerated growth at Israel's second largest technology company. Revenues increased 7% for the quarter in comparison to Q2 and amounted to $178 million. This means that Comverse has met the target it set for itself a year ago – sales at an annual rate of $700 million. Only one Israeli high tech company can boast a higher sales volume, and that is ECI Telecom. Comverse's accelerated growth is also evident in the net profit item, which amounted to $29 million in Q3, a 12% rise over the previous quarter. The figure reflects a $0.62 per share profit, or $0.05 above the highest analysts' projections, practically par for the course for Comverse, after beating the Street eighteen quarters running. According to Comverse CEO Kobi Alexander, about 270 telephone companies worldwide now use the company's services, up from the 260 clients in the last quarterly report. The region that contributes the most to the company's continued growth is Europe, due to the ongoing process of telecommunications deregulation on the continent. However, Asia aslo [sic] posted a positive trend. According to Chief Financial Officer Igal Nissim, Asian revenue constituted 16% of total revenue, in contrast to 14% in the previous quarter. Comverse has two key areas of activity. The primary area at 85% of revenue, is the development and manufacture of advanced digital services for telephone companies. The company's flagship product is the Trilogue system. Until now, this was a voice mail system, however the company's current trend is a build additional applications on the Trilogue platform, which will enable provision of value-added services. These include pre-paid telephony services for cellular service providers. This product enables cellular providers to decrease operating costs and ease subscribers' access to the cellular network. The product is designed to aid cellular providers in penetrating market sectors such as clients with low credit ratings, university and high school students. In keeping with this, Comverse recently announced the launch of a new system known as AIM 2000 which is designed to enable telephone company subscribers to enjoy services beyond the usual voice mail, such as fax transmission and Internet messaging. Comverse recently signed a contract to provide the system to US company Bell South, one of Comverse's oldest clients. Victor Halpert of BancAmerica Robertson Stephens estimates that 10-20% of Bell South's 23 million customers could use these services within a year, and in his opinion, additional US telecommunications companies can be expected in the future to follow in Bell South's footsteps and offer their customers similar services. Igal Nissim told "Globes" today that the new products will yield significant revenues already in the coming year. Comverse's second division, responsible for 15% of revenue, is engaged in the development of digital recording systems. This division is directed at two market segments – the defense market, for which the AudioDisk product is designed, and the civilian market, with the Ultra system. Both these activities were concentrated into a single division a few months ago, Comverse Information systems, as preparation for the company's spin-off into two companies at the end of January 1999. Comverse has been considering a spin-off for quite some time, and the idea gained momentum after the merger with Boston Technology at the end of last year. Boston Technology's field of activity was voice mail, which after the merger, created an imbalance between the two divisions, and the digital recording division's contribution to revenues is much smaller. Comverse's primary competitor in the voice mail field is Octel, recently acquired by Lucent. Comverse's market share is currently estimated at about 40%, compared to just 20% for Lucent, which analysts estimate is not able to constitute a real threat or undermine Comverse's leading position. Published by Israel's Business Arena December 2, 1998 globes.co.il

To: Mark Ambrose who wrote (590)	12/9/1998 6:13:00 PM
From: Beltropolis Boy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1331

people! how 'bout this run?!? where's the hype? where's the noise? ok, we're no cyberstock, but here's the last four days of trading ... who's happy? Date Close Change Day High Day Low Volume Dec 09 68 3/4 +3 +4.56% 69 1/2 66 1,497,700 Dec 08 65 3/4 + 5/16 +0.48% 66 7/8 64 1/4 769,800 Dec 07 65 7/16 + 11/16 +1.06% 66 1/8 64 1/2 722,900 Dec 04 64 3/4 +2 5/16 +3.70% 64 15/16 62 1,143,000