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

To: DMauch who wrote (4208)	4/2/1999 3:41:00 PM
From: DMauch	Respond to of 20297

A little on the competition... Just received my First Data annual report, which puts a big electronic commerce spin on FDC. TransPoint was mentioned up-front under 'Opportunities', along with processing payments for Internet merchants and Electronic check acceptance. They have Transpoint grouped in a business segment called FDC payment instruments, which includes Western Union. The following was written about TransPoint: Strategies: Commercial launch of TransPoint electronic bill presentment and payment service. Ric Duques states "While we are an industry leader in processing noncash payments today, our strategic objective reaches farther: to process every electronic payment worldwide from the point of occurrence to the point of settlement." By the close of 1998, we had over 30 companies participating in our pilot program with a full commercial launch coming in 1999..... This is potentially a $4- to $5-billion market. Company-wide cost containment and reduction initiatives and profit improvement programs largely offset the effect of increased investment spending in the payment instruments segment (principally for TransPoint) and card issuer services and increased Year 2000 expenses. Payment Instruments: Operating profits for the year grew 20%, from $442.9 million in 1997 to $506.8 million, while operating margins were essentially unchanged from the prior year at 30%. Margins improved somewhat from 1997 North American, international, and commercial markets due to economies of scale and cost reduction initiatives but were offset by investments in new electronic payment services, primarily TransPoint, the Internet-based bill presentment and payment joint venture with Microsoft and Citicorp.

To: DMauch who wrote (4208)	4/4/1999 1:57:00 PM
From: Benny Baga	Respond to of 20297

>>>>I read the following in "How to invest in E-Commerce stocks" by Bill Burnham. Any comments on this opinion and how it may effect CheckFree? I read the book about a month ago. If I remember correctly the chapter that you were referring, was "Death of the Switch". Overall the book was written well, very good basic information. The big assumption that Bill Burnham makes is that there will be one standard for EBPP, and everyone will use. Even if this was to happen, it could take years (to use bill's words). I suspect that if this was to happen it would take at least 8 to 10 years. Benny(IMHO)