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

To: Brooks Jackson who wrote (3127)	3/3/1999 1:54:00 PM
From: zuma_rk	Respond to of 20297

When a company gets its press release out before the papers are served, I personally discount their credibility 50%. Brooks -- Being that you're based in DC (the non-existant locale, as per Quicken), you recall a certain quote by the President of another big "organization"? "Well, I guess that rests on what your definition of 'is' is..." Well, it seems like Intuit is taking the same Clintonesque path, IMO. Forgive me if this has been posted previously, but if we assume that this (lame) release is all smoke and mirrors on Intuit's part, I think the lead sentence is worth analyzing a bit more: "Intuit Inc. announced today that it IS filing a complaint, blah, blah, against Checkfree Corporation." "Is" is "IS", not "HAS," but "IS." How would Mr. Clinton interpret this: Hmmmmm..... "Is" could mean this afternoon, tomorrow, or never at all. Here's my lamebrain take on all this.... Intuit knows that CF is about to either sign or announce "the Very Big Thing" which Intuit doesn't like, for whatever reason. Pete and Intuit have been going head to head over this "Very Big Thing" issue for weeks, if not months. In fact, it is such an important issue, that it caused great consternation to CF that an Atlanta paper announced something, which may or may not be the "thing," ahead of last quarter's earnings numbers. (Aha, I guess I now understand why the press release was delayed for two hours in rewrite). Intuit says, "you know, Pete, if you go forward with this Thing on this timetable, we may have to sue to enforce our understanding of our agreement," knowing full-well that for Intuit to effectively sue itself, masochistically clamping off its 20% piece of all the wonderful new business that the "Very Big Thing" will bring to CF, would be a pretty lame case to try before a jury or arbitrator, while all the while Intuit's arch-rival, Microsoft, hits the street with all the gibberish they could muster to shift business to Transpimp. So, Pete ends the conversation with -- "Well, you've gotta do what you feel is right and justifiable," and leaves the meeting, fully planning to stay the course and roll on with the Big Thing (which I would guess involved the irrevocable execution of some paperwork or the release of an announcement TODAY). So Intuit's only out, to preempt the signing or announcement of "the Very Big Thing," was to try to buy some more time (or at least force the parties back to the table), by pre-releasing their intent to maybe, possibly file a complaint (guess "lawsuit" would sound too tough in the newspapers) claiming some bizarre, reverse-economic damages, for Intuit would make LESS money by enjoining CF from moving forward. Anyway -- my guess is that all the busy executives come back home to handle the fictional PR snafu this created, and everyone returns to the table and irons out how to move forward with the Big Thing without pissing anyone else off. Then, we can substitute the words "will never file" for "is filing" in today's press release and call it a day... Pretty lame negotiating tactic on Intuit's part, IMHO (guess they're unconcerned about CF investors who may lose money on the stock from bailing as a result of this bullsh*t release)... Anyway, sorry for the rambling post - RK