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Technology Stocks : CATP-The stock is taking off -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rick who wrote (633)	4/15/1999 12:40:00 PM
From: still learning	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 782

Beg to differ Re "P.S. Lucent idea makes little sense. Product company. No good examples of product companies acquiring and successfully managing/growing high profile services companies. Sure, they've got the money and the share price to do it, but execution would be a nightmare. Not to mention the fact that CATP is basically in a state of disarray right now - it just doesn't make sense. If a takeover happens it will be a services firm with strong management that can replace the clowns that are currently running the show." IBM is essentially a product company trying to build this type of expertise. Look what they've done. Oracle has a significant service arm as well. Another rumour has Siebel interested in CATP for the same reason -- insuring success of its implementations. Bandwidth and completion is the key issue here. While neither Siebel nor Lucent have much to gain from entering a lower margin service business, the end game is all about completing enterprise implementations in an environment where bodies are hard to come by. If you thought that bandwidth could bet you into some $5-50 million deals, then even for Lucent that makes sense. Certainly for a top-line revenue focused company like Siebel. BTW, I hasve no info that any of this is on the table -- pure conjecture from what I hear and observe in the industry. But I am adamant in going out on a limb to say IMHO that CATP needs to be acquired/merged. That would be no more disruptive than the current chaos there and would serve shareholders well (I am not one of them right now). Of course , Rick you may be right and we will see CATP grabbed by a service-oriented company, which is also entirely possible. My only point is not to discount the vale of a well-trained service organization to the product companies. BTW there has been consistent talk of consolidation in CRM and ERP. To think that services companies would stay immune from that discussion is to me far fetched. Well-trained bodies -- and there are still many of them at CATP, despite any that have left -- are a premium item in today's market. Again, this is primarily food for thought, but I wouldn't just spit it out undigested.