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Strategies & Market Trends : Gorilla and King Portfolio Candidates -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Uncle Frank who wrote (738)	3/11/1999 9:29:00 AM
From: Jean M. Gauthier	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

Hi everyone.... Having fun reading the book. Good read... Now a couple points I could get in this morning.... 1st, I do not think AMAT is a Gorilla... so maybe we should split gorilla and kings portfolio into 2... Compaq is not even a king IMO. Nothing distinguishes their stuff from others, and they have nonexistanr "barriers to entry"... ===== Just to start the discussion going.... ===== Another point SUN Microsystems. At least a King, or it's way to gorilla-dom, or "in the eye of the tornado" at this point.. Please consider this... 1- It's consolidating the fragmenting UNIX market, and making it's OS (Solaris 7 64-Bit ) a new corporate standard for ultra-powerful unix servers.. SGI, UnixWare, AIX, Ultrix, HP-UX, all weakening... Solaris gaining ascendancy. 2- It's more than a "committee" member on the JAVA/JINI conputer model, it is becoming it's spiritual/controlling leader... 3- Category-killer UNIX workstations, but more importantly, Category-killer STARFIRE Super-Super Servers that is taking business away from HP, IBM et al... They even use PC-standard parts, like ATI graphic cards, in some of their newer systems, to commodity-level prices. 4- Definitively seen as the "INTERNET company" by public/corporate perception. Windows rules the desktop (forever probably) but SUN rules the internet server backbone... It's dominance is accelerating people, at a faster and faster pace.. a LOT like that other company called microsoft in the 80's-90's... The dot in dot.com ads are actually true, and are becoming more so every quarter. Drawbacks: 1- Windows NT will grab a high share of lower-end server services, but for mission-critical/high-performance SAP, ORACLE, etc, it's SOLARIS/ SUN. 2- JAVA disappears... Not likey, with the indutry adoption rate, I would not think so. 3- JINI does not take off. Possible, but not likely, but still, an emerging technology at best. 4- MERCED processor by INTEL: I actually think they are vulnerable here, but even then who cares... Solaris will be fully supported on it. I expect that SUN will have to scrap the SPARC and that it should. Too expensive to develop and maintain.. Intel MUCH better positioned to do better here. damage effect: minimal, if MERCED takes off. What do you think ? ===== I think they are now past the "CHASM", are in the "TORNADO" phase of massive adoption by everybody, and are seen as one of the only emerging gorillas in the high-tech industry. Barriers to entry are very high, for it's competitors... Anyways, let me know... I am back to reading the book now <smile> Take care Jean

To: Uncle Frank who wrote (738)	3/12/1999 3:32:00 PM
From: Teflon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

Uncle Frank and Group, how are you?? I hope everything over here is going well. I have been very busy of late and have not had much time to post except for some recent dribble on the MSFT board. I just purchased my first batch of CPQ today for $30 1/2 and am quite happy about it. I would not put to much stock in the worries regarding CPQ's upcoming earnings report. The word I hear is that many of the analysts are reacting to the Dell situation last quarter (downgrade prior to the announcement) and don't want to be left behind this Quarter if the same is going to happen. But everything I hear is that CPQ is having a good Q and may surprise a few folks depending on the Pentium III sales. To clarify, the are many reputations being made and lost amongst the analyst community. Many people didn't follow the folks from BBRS last Q when they warned about DELL and now they wish they had. It gave much craved credibility to a few hot shot analysts and made most of the high tech analysts (who didn't follow suit) look like idiots. Well this Quarter, they are not going to give the tech bell weathers the benefit of the doubt. Too many bonuses at stake. This is also why many on the street believe MSFT preannounced on the Office 97 deferment. MSFT management did not want the analysts to be the ones to sort this out for them at the end of the Quarter. CNBC and the rest of the new business media is making stars/heroes and overnight losers out of the analysts these days, and the game is getting very competitive. I am now long on CPQ, for the record. Take care, Teflon