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Technology Stocks : Oracle Corporation (ORCL) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jont who wrote (10753)	5/14/1999 3:28:00 PM
From: Tom_	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 19080

BB Robertson Stephens' take: Synopsis of report... At yesterday's semi-annual analyst meeting, Oracle management confirmed our fears that near-term execution problems could continue to hamper results for the next few quarters. As a result, we are lowering our estimates for Q4:99 (May) from $0.32 to $0.29, and for F1999 and F2000 from $0.83 and $0.96 to $0.81 and $0.94, respectively. We believe that the company continues to be hampered by three factors - one external and two internal. First, the dramatic halt in ERP revenues is hurting both the database and applications businesses and demand for new, internet-based applications, while strong, is not nearly enough to offset this shutdown. Second, we continue to hear concerns from Big 5 consultants that they are hesitant to recommend Oracle solutions due to the competition from Oracle Consulting. These lost referrals were not much of an issue when the market was more robust, but in these challenging times, they have really hurt the business, in our view. Finally, the company has lost and continues to lose talented salespeople and sales managers, primarily to start-up companies, causing disruption in account management in the field and telesales. In order to attempt to meet EPS goals with a more uncertain top-line picture, President Ray Lane stated that his operational mandate was to take at least $300 million out of expenses next fiscal year - while growing headcount in sales and development. Oracle has never been particularly effective at expense control, and we believe that this dual mandate could pose a challenge. ~~~~~~ Best wishes, Tom [Edit: from the main body of the report: "SO WHAT TO DO WITH ORACLE STOCK?...We remain bullish and confident that Oracle will have a major role to play in the new eCommerce world....Based on the company's typical seasonal revenue patterns, we believe that it could be as long as November before we see a rebound in fundamentals that could drive the stock back to its former levels."