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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (44727)	1/28/1999 2:36:00 AM
From: Peter Singleton	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

MB, I haven't looked at the CPQ numbers closely, but wouldn't the increase in services Y-to-Y be simply the addition of DEC's substantial service revenue base to CPQ's original small services business? So, basically a meaningless number with the level of detail provided in the earnings report. [you'd said " Services growth was 1,249% this quarter vs. 4Q last year. Boy, is that good. <G> Yes, it has to do with taking over DEC, but DEC never saw growth like that"] Peter p.s., someone really ought to bolt DEC's last year's 4Q onto CPQ's and compare to CPQ's 4Q this year to get any realistic idea of how their business compared on datapoints like inventory. In any event, a pathetic presentation of the financial information in all respects by CPQ. Virtually useless for anyone trying to understand the performance of their business this past quarter and year.

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (44727)	1/28/1999 2:41:00 AM
From: Yogizuna	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

My system flashed a sell signal on CPQ last night. Your note almost makes me feel like buying some puts on it this morning. Yogi

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (44727)	1/28/1999 1:10:00 PM
From: Peter Singleton	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

MB, Going back to CPQ's numbers ... <g> As I've mentioned before, comparing Y-toY is not meaningful, since we don't have enough data to compare the two sets of numbers, on cash, inventories, whatever. Q3 to Q4 is different. One interesting datapoint is Q4 revenues were $10.859B vs $9.145B in Q3. Receivables were $6.998B Q4 vs $5.727B Q3. So, an additional $1.271B in receivables for an additional $2.068B in revenue. Btw, I don't know how much of the receivables spike is due to normal end-of-fiscal-year bookings which would naturally have cash collections that would slip into the next quarter due to normal billing terms, and how much would be attributable to forward selling (bringing out period revenue into the current period, and having to extend favorable payment terms to incent that). Just a word to all. I think it's essential to sift through the financial data for clues as to performance, and lead indicators for future performance, but we need to do so carefully, since the conclusions aren't always obvious. Maybe someone could check out the CPQ thread (using CPQ as an example), since there're likely to be folks who know the financial data much better than any of us here. Peter