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Strategies & Market Trends : Graham and Doddsville -- Value Investing In The New Era -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: porcupine --''''> who wrote (1060)	12/21/1998 6:51:00 PM
From: Freedom Fighter	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1722

Berkshire Hathaway a Value Now? In the last week or so Berkshire Hathaway stock has come under enormous selling pressure as a result of the imminent merger with General Re. General Re was part of the S&P500. The new merged BRK will not be at this time. This has forced holders of General Re that are part of/or are trying to mimic the S&P500 to sell their shares of GRN and buy the new addition to the index instead. Due to the fixed relationship between BRK and GRN stock, they have sunk together. My preliminary analysis of the merged company suggests that the combined entity is now selling at a "Look Thru" PE ratio that is very much in line with BRK's average level over the last few years. It is selling at a discount to the S&P500 despite a far greater growth rate and many companies with lower risks that make up the portfolio. I believe the addition of GRN to the BRK family adds significant long term potential and value to BRK due to size, new opportunities, cost savings and other synergies. It also positions BRK to take advantage of a bear market. GRN has an enormous bond/bill portfolio and Warren is now sitting on a war chest of around of 30 billion. There is little doubt that as opportunities present themselves, WB will reallocate this portfolio in higher return securities and increase look thru earnings and value. One might say that WB is probably praying for a bear market right about now! I believe it is not a screaming buy at this price. But in this environment it is worth purchasing as a long term core holding. I have owned the company since 1988. I added to that position today. Wayne Crimi Value Investor Workshop members.aol.com

To: porcupine --''''> who wrote (1060)	12/22/1998 6:32:00 PM
From: porcupine --''''>	Respond to of 1722

New IBM software to shield e-mail from hackers By Nicole Volpe NEW YORK, Dec 14 (Reuters) - IBM Corp. will announce on Monday software that protects electronic mail systems against existing vulnerabilities, in an effort to boost confidence that the Internet is a safe place to do business. Called Secure Mailer, IBM hopes the program will replace the existing Sendmail delivery software that currently processes more than three-quarters of Internet correspondence. "This will make IBM's and everyone's Internet activities more secure," promised Charles Palmer, IBM's network security research manager. Palmer said the current software used in most e-mail programs, developed nearly 20 years ago, suffers from "some nasty bugs" which have been known to delete files, send out password files and other "dumb things" which hackers can exploit to compromise security. In order to entice the software world to scrap this essentially free program, IBM not only plans to give away its own version of the product, but is publishing the underlying source code too. This allows programmers to tinker with the e-mail software's basic functions and develop improvements. This is a departure, but a necessary one for IBM. Sendmail Inc., the privately-held distributor of the current e-mail program, already freely publishes its own programming code. IBM stands to benefit indirectly from solving security issues due to its large and rapidly growing investment in overall electronic commerce. The computer maker has traditionally closely guarded its proprietary software creations and is seen as a jealous defender of its patents. Chris King, analyst with industry researchers Meta Group, said he didn't see IBM giving up on its commercial goals by giving away some of its software secrets. "IBM sees this as an indirect revenue generator," he said. IBM said it is publishing the e-mail software code not only to replace what it considers faulty Sendmail software, but also as a test run for developing "open source" software in general. The term refers to the source code that underlies any software program. In this case, IBM has agreed to openly publish what it has traditionally considered a trade secret. "It's clear we are kind of taking baby steps here and feeling it out," said an IBM spokeswoman. "The feeling is this definitely an area to explore." IBM's move follows other leading software makers, like Netscape Communications Corp. and Sun Microsystems Inc. , which in the past year have signed up for what is known in the industry as the open source software movement with Netscape's browser and Java from Sun. Open source software has become popular with a growing number of programmers who see it as an alternative to Microsoft Corp.'s perceived stranglehold on new innovations through its dominant Windows operating system. "For example, versions of these...systems can be bordered (connected) to larger systems such as to the service providers, with their big mail sites," said Secure Mailer developer Wietse Venema. "Programmers may want to add enhancements so it fits better in these big environments." The e-mail software will be made available on IBM's alphaWorks Web site (www.ibm.com/alphaworks). ((--New York Newsdesk (212) 859-1700))

To: porcupine --''''> who wrote (1060)	12/22/1998 6:35:00 PM
From: porcupine --''''>	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1722

IBM Servers Place First in New Performance Study SOMERS, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 22, 1998--IBM has received the highest overall ranking for its UNIX servers in an innovative benchmark-testing study of server performance. The independent study, conducted by D.H. Brown Associates, ranked IBM's two high-end UNIX servers -- the RS/6000 S70 and the RS/6000 SP -- number one (63) with a 14-point lead over its closest competitor Sun Microsystems (49). This first-of-its-kind study compares server performance using a weighted average of several industry-standard benchmark results that measure general commercial applicability, online transaction processing decision support, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and scientific applications(1). The result is an overall numerical ranking, or a "Composite Performance Metric" (CPM), that is designed to help IT managers gauge all-around server performance. Following IBM and Sun were the high-end servers from Hewlett Packard (44), Compaq (41), Silicon Graphics Inc. (40) and NCR (21) respectively. "The IBM RS/6000 achieved the number one position in our initial rankings by maintaining balance with solid scores in all areas important to IT managers," said Richard Partridge, senior research analyst for D.H. Brown. "IBM's lead shows the versatility of the RS/6000 family, and for users who wish to deploy a variety of applications on one platform, versatility is an important attribute." "We know that our customers turn to RS/6000 systems for many types of applications including both commercial and technical computing," said Rodney Adkins, general manager for IBM RS/6000. "The D.H. Brown study offers IT managers a fresh and valuable new perspective on server performance characteristics." According to D.H. Brown, the composite was developed to help IT managers focus benchmark data into an overall ranking that gives them better information to formulate their purchasing strategies and in turn deliver benefits to their businesses. As a follow up to the study, D.H. Brown plans to continue refining the CPM with an update scheduled for early 1999. (1) CPM employs a weighted average of the following UNIX-focused benchmarks: TPC-C, TPC-D and SPECint/fp 95, SAP, NotesBench, Linpack and Stream. Additional information can be found on www.rs6000.ibm.com or www.dhbrown.com