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Technology Stocks : IFMX - Investment Discussion -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sydney who wrote (13065)	3/25/1999 2:40:00 PM
From: Zoro	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 14631

No, I am not short. My comment that all data base companies have been hammered the last month is an observation that I believe is accurate. The battle between ORCL and IFMX for talent is monumental. I believe IFMX is undervalued. That's why I bought it before at 4. I had hoped it would continue to climb to the 20's, but it got beat up once it reached 14. I sold at 10 1/2 because I was afraid my entire profit would vanish, not because the company was going south, but because the market was (and has continued to) undervaluing it. I do still own ORCL because I believe it is the dominant player in the data base world, but must admit that I've held while watching a very big gain evaporate to a reasonable, but much smaller paper profit. I think there's plenty of room for both IFMX and ORCL to grow and prosper, but my personal view is that ORCL will remain dominant, unless MSFT surpasses it.

To: Sydney who wrote (13065)	3/26/1999 5:02:00 PM
From: Howard Armstrong	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 14631

Bad long-term investment. Short when above $10. Long when below $7. At $8, stay out. Look at the charts over the past two years. You see a bump into the low 10's when there are rumors of an acquisition. Then IFMX falls back into the mid single-digits. As I've said for two years, IFMX will not ever recover in the long term. A few facts: 1) Informix is about 1/2 the size of what it was two years ago in number of employees. Revenue has declined from over $900 million to $735. 2) The "growth" over the past few quarters is over horrible, re-stated numbers from previous years. 3) The executive turnover over the past two years is nearly 100%. 4) Wall St still doesn't trust this company. Earnings for Q1 1998 were re-stated ... that was less than a year ago. 5) Their main competitors, ORCL, IBM, and MSFT continue to gain in market share, at the expense of IFMX and SYBS. 6) IFMX remains a good niche player in data warehousing and multimedia data management. Neither of these markets seem to be growing. It's hard to see the company growing again, unless suddenly the RDBMS market heats up. 7) IFMX key ERP partners like SAP and BAAN are bleeding badly. ERP systems are a big reason why the RDBMS vendors sell software. 8) Linux and NT have re-defined the pricing strategy for software. The days of $1000 per user for RDBMS are long gone. MSFT charges about $100 per user. 9) Analysts acknowledge that IFMX is way behind in electronic commerce, which you correctly say is a growth area for RDBMS. Like they were in the late 80's, they are playing catchup to the much more aggressive ORCL. 9) Over the past two years (since the April 1 1997 debacle), IFMX stock price has done nothing. It bumps up into the low 10's when there is a rumor of an acquisition. Then it promptly drops to the mid-single digits. You can make some money timing the stock this way, but as a long term investment, forget it.