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To: HG who wrote (50883)	4/16/1999 3:23:00 PM
From: Glenn D. Rudolph	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 164684

Here is denial.. Two Internet company results fall shy of forecasts By Andrea Orr PALO ALTO, Calif., April 15 (Reuters) - Two more Internet companies on Thursday issued first quarter earnings reports that were slightly below forecasts, although both shortfalls were marginal and appeared not to concern investors. The Internet service Excite Inc. <XCIT.O> reported a first quarter operating profit of 4 cents per share, a penny under analysts' consensus. Internet retailer Onsale Inc. <ONSL.O> reported a loss that was also a penny shy of forecasts and larger than the year-ago loss. These latest results follow two other minor disappointments earlier in the week when Internet portal Infoseek Corp. <SEEK.O> posted below-forecasts results, and high-speed Internet service provider AtHome Corp. <ATHM.O> issued subscriber data that suggested it could have trouble meeting full year goals for signing up new customers. Analysts tended to shrug off these pieces of bad news, saying the whole Internet sector remained robust and that the companies that had missed forecasts had done so by the slimmest of margins. Most said said they saw little if any connection between these financial results and the recent volatility in Internet shares, which has taken many stocks dramatically lower. "I wouldn't say it was indicative of an overall trend," said Warburg Dillon Read analyst Michael Wallace. He said Excite's earnings fell within the range of forecasts, and Infoseek's shortfall reflects adjustments involved with the launch of a new online service, the Go Network, in conjunction with its partner Walt Disney Co. <DIS.N>. But in an industry that has enjoyed hyper-growth rates over the past year, exceeding Wall Street's forecasts has almost come to be expected and results that are merely on target are sometimes not well received. Many companies still are outperforming even the rosiest forecasts. Yahoo Inc <YHOO.O>, the largest Internet portal has beaten estimates almost every quarter for the past two years, including its latest first quarter. And Inktomi Corp <INKT.O>, another Internet company that makes search engine and traffic management technology, Thursday reported a loss that was considerably smaller than forecasts, while its revenues came close to tripling. Excite says its results reflect a strategy of putting as much money as is reasonably possible back into marketing to grow the company's user base. Onsale says its large loss is due partly to its experimenting with different business models. The company has shifted most of its sales from auction-format to flat-price models and says it believes it is now positioned to grow rapidly. And Inktomi, which sells Internet technology to a range of other online services, said from its vantage point, the Internet business was as good as ever. "The number of new portals is accelerating ... and the rate of acceleration is still increasing," said Inktomi Chairman Dave Peterschmidt. REUTERS Rtr 21:43 04-15-99