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To: Jock Hutchinson who wrote (18707)	6/3/1999 5:14:00 PM
From: Jock Hutchinson	Respond to of 25814

Slight correction. Post should read "that is potentially $520 million per year.

To: Jock Hutchinson who wrote (18707)	6/4/1999 1:22:00 AM
From: shane forbes	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 25814

Jock: --- Consider 2 sets of 4 numbers: {10, 11, 12, 13} {10, 12, 14, 16} The average of the first set is 11.5 The average of the 2nd set is 13.0 The yearly increase is: 13%. The quarterly increases (means I compare 10 to 10, 11 to 12 and so on) are: 0%, 9%, 17%, 23%. Does the 23% invalidate the fact the yearly average increase is 13%? The fact that 23% is so much higher than '13%' does that mean a lot? Well then why should we not be fazed by the fact that the 0% is such a slim increase? We should not be in both cases. An average is just that - a summary number - it squishes a lot of info. into one piece and there is not much more you can say! So LSI can generate a 15% yearly growth (average = industry growth rate YOY AGAIN - this is how an average is derived - an 'obvious' point.) and still have 35%, 40%, 0% 1999 Q over 1998 Q growth rates. There are no inconsistencies here. So there is no need to get your panties in a bunch if you see that Q4 would have such and such a growth rate and that such a 'high' number is outrageous. --- The crux of this whole nonsense is that LSI bought the assets to produce an incremental 0.6bil in 1998 revs. The restructuring charges indicate that of the assets they did not do a heck of a lot of writing off of the hard assets. IPR&D writeoffs are all well and good but the fact that LSI reduced it from 225 million to 146 million shows how farcical the whole thing is - did it change the economic value of the assets? No. Even if I want to grant the fact that this is ok I could just as well argue that the synergies from FC, marketing and such will make the resulting Symbios assets more productive. As I see the breakdowns of the other big charge - the restructuring charge - I see nothing that leads me to believe that they made any major reduction in the items they sold through Symbios. They have always mentioned redundancies in personnel but never have I heard them say 'we are going to produce less of this or that'. And that is the key. After all if they discontinued a large product line then I have no right to use 600 mil. But I see nothing significant anywhere and I feel that any reductions will be compensated by synergies (marketing, FC, old LSI R&D) elsewhere. LSI's inventory bulge (excluding Symbios) at end Q3 shows how LSI's biz went into the crapper late Q3. This carryover effect affected Q4 revs and Q1 revs you can bet on it. LSI always has a lag time in both recovery and falling flat. ---- Consider another set of 4 numbers { 5, 9, 12, 15} (average: 10.25). I randomly pick a set of 3 numbers from the above set. What is the average of my set? I would say 10.25. Well now suppose I know that one number is higher than the average - for simplicity assume we know a bit more and it is 12. What is the average of the numbers now? Well one answer would be {10.25 * 2 + 12 } / 3 = 10.83. Here I use the information I know (the 12) and then apply an average to the others. Is this ok? Well it seems reasonable but it seems to me to be not. You will err on the high side. After all 10.25 is the average INCLUDING the number 12. If I wanted to do the above I would have to use the average EXCLUDING the number 12 (which I don't know - in this case it is 9.67. Now note that ( 9.67 * 2 + 12 ) / 3 = 10.45. Note that the earlier derived average of 10.83 is higher than this more correct average of 10.45. Also note that 10.45 is higher than the 10.25 global average). Likewise even if I knew Storage Components was doing very well, I would be better off (ie., I would be conservative) in deriving an average to ignore this information. Hence I would use 15% for the semisector of LSI. It is after all possible for LSI to have some sub-sectors that are sucking wind and it would be wrong for me to use the average for the entire sector on these sucking-wind sub-sectors. --- The fact that your mathematical abilities are such that you are impressed with 'polynomials' says a lot. Ouch. It also explains a lot of your problems. --- 457/445 = 2.7%. If you want to say 2.5% fine. Especially if you want to say you derived the number by dividing Q over Q revs then fine - at least get it right. It's about significant digits - your teacher would not be proud. --- As to LSI 'poor' people vs. 'rich' people. That was a comment on LSI and a lot of these big companies who still think the broker acts as the intermediary. I can understand their predicament (it is difficult to have several thousand people wanting equal access) but the Internet provides much of the solution. They still do not store the calls and that's bad. If the calls were available it would be a lot easier to settle these nonsensical arguments about he said and she said. ---- BTW I have decided to put a monthly quota on my time on SI. I have no desire to fritter away the hours here like I did in 1998 (most of 1998) or 1997. I figure 10 hrs a month is a good number. You know what? Quota over. I am not going to once again be caught in this trap of posting posting posting ad infinitum just so that some drunken fool can accuse me of being a 'shill' or some other dickwad can say that I was hyping the stock or some other dickhead is impressed by LSI's potential based on a few sentences I have written and put his life savings into it. The less I have to do with OPM (Other People's Money) the much better I feel. The problem with these sites are that there is too much of a connection to OPM. 10 hrs is good enough and I'm gone until next month. In any case there are a lot better things for me to do than argue with an egocentric brick wall.

To: Jock Hutchinson who wrote (18707)	6/4/1999 2:20:00 AM
From: shane forbes	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25814

BTW I forgot to add that there is NOTHING significantly wrong with the argument you made in the post to which this refers. But the others were crap. ---- Compare this example of an earlier argument of yours: When I wrote that "LSI needs to grow at an annualized rate of almost 35% a year just to have an "average" year, when the anticipated average for the industry is 15 percent" it was clearly a poke at your use of the word "average" as well as your use of the $2.1 billion dollar figure. And that is my primary point--that for LSI to have a year where they achieve $2.1 billion dollars in revenue, they will far need to outperform the industry average going forward--by about 20 percentage points if the industry grows by 15 percent this year. And this is what I mean by being overly optimistic. I am not saying that LSI cannot or will not hit the $2.1 billion figure this year. What I am saying is that they will dramatically need to outperform the industry average to do such. with the correct one in the post to which this refers: Thus, for the second quarter of the combined LSI and Symbios entity, the growth rate was 2.5%. And to achieve the $2.1 billion that you deem “average”. LSI would need to see a yearly increase in sales of 35% over 4Q 1998, which was the first full quarter that LSI and old Symbios were combined. Since there is already a 2.5% increase in the books, this means that each of the next three quarters would need to improve by 9% sequentially in order to hit your so-called average. Thus, the overall increase over the only full quarter that reflects the combined Symbios LSI entity would be 35% in the following year. [Shane's add: Did I say anything about the industry growth rate Q4 1999 over 1998. For all we know the average may be 21%, 27% or whatever. Compare apples and apples. We know of only 1 thing. The full year growth rate of 1999 over 1998 is 15%.] ---- There are so many differences here it is comical. - The key is that you are arguing one Quarter 1999 over 1998 in the most recent post ('only full quarter') vs. 1 Full Year ('this year', - note 15% is a full year number not a Q4 1998 vs. Q4 1999 number) earlier . - Besides previously you argued with the 1.85 bil as an incorrect 'base' first because of the IPR&D then because of the fact that since Q4 was stronger (first note that I did not say this in the Patrick post - the one you referred to in making all that noise about 1.85 bil., 2nd just by saying it was stronger does not mean it was the strongest! You assumed that it was the strongest of the 4 quarters and so had to be greater than the mean. Ouch again.) it had to be more than the average! - The wrong part of your current argument is the 9% (it should be higher) and the fact that there is no god given requirement that LSI should see equal sequential improvement in sales growth. In fact the fact that it is low initially requires a much higher 1999 Q4 over 1998 Q4 rate. ---- So the argument is NOW right but the argument NOW is arguing something quite different. Your problem is that you are changing the basis with which you disagree with me with such frequency that there is now such a resulting hodgepodge of nonsense that your earlier posts now look totally different from your later posts. It's become all confused. What that they say about writing simple English and thinking clearly? Using up the July Quota in another big waste of time. -1 hr.