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Strategies & Market Trends : Gorilla and King Portfolio Candidates -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: chaz who wrote (2132)	5/23/1999 2:20:00 AM
From: chaz	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 54805

More on the Red Herring list: Included is E-Toy...about which I have dubious forecasts. Toy companies today sell largely through Wal-Mart, ToysRUs, Target...etc. and for toy manufacturers to offer their products through E-Toy would tend to muck up those relationships. E-Toy will make some sales, but not with big-name, high demand toys...at least not as the market is structured now. The list also includes the boxmakers...which we here have largely decided are not the rosy paths to the future that they once were. Makes me wonder about some of the other unknown (to me) names on the list. Lindy: Thanks for running your losers by us. I hope that during the period you've reported that you also had some winners to offset those setbacks. One remark puzzled me...regarding Intuit...good product, bad company. How did you reach that conclusion? Obviously you did so after your purchase. Were there signals you might have foreseen before buying the stock, and what were they? I had a similar experience in the disc drive market...getting in when the market was crossing the chasm....and every bet I made failed. It took the book to help me understand why that had happened back then.

To: chaz who wrote (2132)	5/23/1999 9:23:00 AM
From: Mike Buckley	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

Chaz, Before I respond to your concern about Microsoft invading Siebel's terf, I'm copying the exact quote below: And Microsoft has yet to offer a product for the booming customer-relationship management market, which is now dominated by the likes of Siebel Systems and Vignette. First, if the implication is that Siebel and Vignette are in the same business, they're not. Second, because the CRM market is expected to be larger than the ERP market, I would expect new competitors to want their piece of the pie. Anyone worried about the possibility of Softie invading the territory is probably also concerned that IBM, Oracle, Baan, and SAP are already doing that. And there's a strong possibility that PeopleSoft will end their relationships with Vantive and Siebel to provide even more competition. What do I say? Bring 'em on. This is a gorilla game in progress. Right now Siebel has the best shot, by an 18-month technology lead and a huge market-share lead, at being the gorilla. Things will get better or worse for Siebel, but I doubt things will stay the same. It'll be fun watching and I think it'll also be profitable for Siebel investors over the long term. To change the subject, someone (my apologies for not remembering who) asked yesterday about companies that provide software for enabling transactions and managing customers on the Net. Vignette is a great company to look at. I don't know if they are the leaders, but they've got a great concept and the technology to make it happen. Anyone interested should also do a search at the Motley Fool for an interview of Vignette's CEO not long ago. Sorry I didn't remember this yesterday when the subject came up. --Mike Buckley