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Technology Stocks : CheckFree Holdings Corp. (CKFR), the next Dell, Intel? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: james m. schultz who wrote (1331)	1/15/1999 8:19:00 PM
From: TLindt	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 20297

>>>But I was hoping for a little more then really....just read 8540 posts.......really

To: james m. schultz who wrote (1331)	1/16/1999 12:59:00 AM
From: HRM	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 20297

James - I recently completed my review of CF. I started reading over on the Yahoo message board before finding my way over here. Here is a synopsis of my take of the information contained in the portion of the messages I have read. (My thanks to the regulars for the raw material for these comments). You might also check back around the first of September when there was some discussion of the analyst reports from the CF conference. Good luck Harry The Competition The major competition appears to be developing in the form of the TransPoint service which is a joint venture of Microsoft, First Data, and CitiGroup. Several smaller players as well as homegrown systems from financial institutions exist. This market (IMHO) will be one that demands scale (or a defined market niche) in order to compete successfully. This is very similar to the situation in the financial services market today. Their we see a great deal of consolidation occuring as we go from a large number of players to a smaller number of scale players plus niche players. In CheckFree's market, we have a relatively small number of players in a rapidly expanding market with some fairly sizeable barriers to entry. Thus my expectation is that the market is likely to evolve with 2 - 3 scale players controlling around 80% of the market and a number of smaller players splitting up the remaining 20%. Even 1/3 of 80% of the ultimate market would provide tremendous growth opportunities for CheckFree. Keys to Success The primary key to success (IMHO) is distribution. Then come service, product, and technology. These factors are interrelated since you need to meet minimum levels of service, product, and technology to play the game and they can be important factors in differentiating yourself with the distribution systems. And CheckFree currently has the major portion of the distribution systems in their corner. It possesses electronic banking and billing relationships with 40 of the top 50 banks in the US and 25 of the top 100 billers (including the largest AT&T and 8 of the top 10) representing 56% of the telecommunications bills sent in the US. It serves the electronic billing gateway for the Integrion banks and is in a joint venture with Visa for providing on-line payment of electronic bills. It also has reached an agreement with Oracle to use their databases which will provide access to the Oracle sales system to help maintain their lead in distribution. Current Advantages Relationships -- Integrion alliance - CheckFree is the preferred bill payment/presentment provider. Integrion collectively represents 75% of the Check books in the U.S. In addition to Integrion, CF has contracts with 300+ banks. -- Intuit - CheckFree is the exclusive provider of bill payment/presentment for Quicken, Quicken.com, BankNow, etc. Quicken has about a 80% market share. -- CheckFree has contracts with 24 of the largest biller, including the largest biller, and the largest statement processor. -- Visa Deal - This will allow CheckFree to process 85% of their transactions electronically. -- AT&T relationship. Experience -- CheckFree has spent years building a merchant database that is unmatched, and allows CheckFree to pay bills on time with consistency. -- CheckFree has been in the business for 15 years and understands it. Technology -- CheckFree has working systems -- They have completed development of their next generation technology and are in the process of rolling it out. Barriers to Entry -- Long term contracts. CheckFree has 10 year contracts with many of its distributors. -- CheckFree has been paying bills electronically for 16 years, and is the proven market leader. Bill payment is a very difficult process. -- CheckFree has locked up the banks, and therefore, locked up the best interface for paying bills - On-line Banking. -- "Dial tone" quality required in this market. The financial service firms which are their customers require processes and systems which work right 24/7/365. They can't afford to be working with a provider who is learning on the job. Through its ACH payment work, CheckFree has built up a trust relationship with its customers and an understanding of their requirements.

To: james m. schultz who wrote (1331)	1/18/1999 8:53:00 AM
From: AugustWest	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 20297

hi Jim. here's a good place to start #reply-7200158 And then there's this too if you're interested. CheckFree finds total cost of ownership pays off in its efficient new datacenter(Genesis). datamation.com NIIT Joins CheckFree Biller Alliance Program investquest.com CheckFree Announces Data Warehousing Agreement with Business Technology Alliance investquest.com CheckFree Licenses Bill Creation Internet Billing Solution From BlueGill Technologies investquest.com Oracle and CheckFree Partner for Electronic Bill Presentation and Payment investquest.com CheckFree Announces Next Generation of CheckFree E-Bill at RDS '98 investquest.com edocs Completes BillDirect Software Integration with CheckFree's E-Bill Delivery & Payment Systems investquest.com Mobius Management Systems, Inc. and CheckFree Corporation Announce Partnership for Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment investquest.com CheckFree Launches Electronic Banking Association Web Site to Promote Electronic Banking, Bill Presentment and Payment via the Internet investquest.com CheckFree to Provide Processing for EDS' Electronic Bill Paying Service to Financial Institutions investquest.com CheckFree to Provide Internet Billing and Payment Services for Country of New Zealand investquest.com CheckFree is the First Portfolio Accounting Service Provider with Direct, High-Speed Link to the Depository Trust Company for Trade Settlement Processing investquest.com CheckFree Introduces Two New Products to Help Banks, Corporations Automate Account Reconciliation Operations and Receivables Matching investquest.com CheckFree RECON-Plus for Windows Streamlines Reconciliation Processing for American Payment Systems investquest.com CheckFree Migrates Credit Card Balance Transfer Clients to New RPP System investquest.com AT&T and CheckFree to Provide AT&T Customers with New Electronic Billing Options on the Internet investquest.com Integrion Brings Visa and CheckFree Together to Create Next Generation Payments Capability investquest.com CheckFree to Provide Bill Presentment and Payment For Intuit's Quicken Software and Quicken.com Web site investquest.com CheckFree to Divest Specified Software Products, Expand Focus on Electronic Commerce investquest.com CheckFree Releases New Client/Server Securities Reconciliation System Trade RECON Builds on Strengths of RECON-Plus for Windows investquest.com TSYS(R) Teams with CheckFree to Offer Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment/Unveils Electronic Commerce Initiatives investquest.com Integrion and CheckFree Roll Out Interactive Financial Service (IFS)/CheckFree Solution for Electronic Banking, Billing and Payment investquest.com Integrion and CheckFree Announce 10-Year Strategic Alliance investquest.com CheckFree Announces Support for Integrion-Intuit Linkage investquest.com CheckFree and International Billing Services Partner for Electronic Bill Presentation and Payment investquest.com CheckFree's E-Bill Joins Smithsonian Collection investquest.com CheckFree Releases First Fully-Operational, Single-Site Electronic Bill Delivery and Payment Product investquest.com CheckFree Corporation Completes Acquisition of Intuit's Transaction Processing Unit investquest.com http://www.investquest.com/InvestQuest/c/ckfr/main/ckfr.gif Intuit, Microsoft and CheckFree Create Open Financial Exchange investquest.com 6 month MACD(8-17-9)chart askresearch.com. 6 month stochastics(15-5-5)chart askresearch.com. Statistics at a Glance -- CKFR Last Updated: Jan 15, 1999 52-Week Low $5.75 Recent Price $27.25 52-Week High $31.50 Beta 2.86 Daily Volume (3-month avg) 604.0K Share-Related Items Market Capitalization $1.39B ************************************ So if you don't want to read through 9000+ posts to get the gist of things here. Read the links I provided, and you should be fairly caught up with the thread. Sorry, I can't articulate in a few sentences why I think CKFR is such a superb company. I guess I'm a little too wordy at times. Anyhow, enjoy.