Conference nyoss1::market_investing

    btw, a week ago some guy asked in misc.invest.stocks for opinions about
    investing the down payment for his house in the Yahoo ipo. Many replies
    said that it probably wasn't good to risk short term money in an ipo,
    but very few questioned the basic idea of investing in a web directory
    and search engine company. 

    re: Yahoo IPO
    
    I think the theory is the same as DEC using Alta Vista as a product. 
    It fills a need for a good search engine.  The thinking is, there are
    a lot of people on the Web, they need to search for what they need,
    Yahoo wants to be the best one (of many.)  Just like Netscape wants
    to be the best browser (of many.)  How will Yahoo be best?  Maybe it'll
    go for exclusive listings, or such.  Maybe it will go as a strategic
    partner to Microsoft.  Maybe it'll be easiest to use.  Maybe they'll
    come out with other products (like a browser) or something.  
    
    I would stay away from it, but then again, I tend to stay away from
    IPOs.  I'm pretty bearish on tech stocks right now (I'm really anxious
    to hear this quarter's earning for the industry.)  If the industry is
    in a downturn, Yahoo might be a bust.
    
    
    I certainly wouldn't put the house on it.
    
    
    
    Bart

    I think the concept is in people investing in an image.  Netscape is a
    modern phenomenom in that a small percentage of ownership was offered
    at a price/capitalization which had no conventional investment
    foundation.  Then the money poured in and voila, now the talent has the
    capital to quickly justify the heretofore "foolish" ipo investment. 
    And the "fools" mostly made money.
    
    If Digital took 10% of AltaVista and made it public why couldn't they
    repeat the Netscape story?

    I see the business opportunity in the Intranet area. Most large
    companies will have internal WWW sites set up an they need a search
    engine. The internal AltaVista at digital is the example for this.
    
    Yahoo's added value here is structuring information access for their
    customers.
    
    While AltaVista is a very powerful base technolgy for this, we should
    not try to get address this market directly. We should make Yahoo, Lycos 
    and all the others our partners and avoid competing with them.
    
    AltaVista still is the greatest marketing story we have had in years.
    
    Klaus
    

	FWIW, as a followup, the IPO occured last week (Friday I believe),
	offered at $13, closed the trading day at $33, making it the best
	IPO for the year thus far.

	I do not know what the opening price was (the best price us mere
	mortals could of gotton the stock for at the begin of public trading).
	Anyone know the trading symbol?

    RE: .5
    
    The symbol is YHOO.  What anyone who wasn't trading with a market maker
    could have gotten the stock for was around $22-24.  Even at that price,
    though, it still went up to $42.  Not a bad one day profit.  
    
    Personally, I got so busy with work that day I forgot about the IPO,
    and didn't get in until the low 30s.  Time will tell if I can get out
    with a few additional bucks in my pocket or not.
    
    Chuck
    

    At that price the market valuation is over $1bn, a stagering amount when
    you look at the product. So Alta-Vista must be worth a similar amount, if
    not more, it's certainly faster and I think it's  easier to use.

    Priced as $1bn Alta-Vista must be one of Digital's hottest assets, it's
    more than Oracle paid for RDB.
    
    But would Digital sell it, or possible split it off into a seperate company
    but hold a majority interest.

    Just Speculation, but it would certainly boost Digital's earnings...


	Ferdy

re                      <<< Note 990.7 by CHEFS::MACLEOD >>>
                         -< So what price Alta-Vista >-

    
>    But would Digital sell it, or possible split it off into a seperate company
>    but hold a majority interest.

they should split it off!!
the rest of DEC will drag down the glitz and glitter of
AltaVista.

> At that price the market valuation is over $1bn, a stagering amount when
> you look at the product.

	From my understanding, and I'm basically quoting analysts
	from one or more of the following sources: NBR, W$W, CNN HN ...

	Yahoo does not have a real product per se.  There only revenue
	is advertisement revenue.  Ie. it's like the free trade rags
	we've all subscribed to at one time or another.  The product
	itself is given away, paid fully by advertisers (though I'm
	not sure Yahoo's ad revenues have yet surpassed operating costs?).
	This is kinda simliar to Netscape which gives away it's browser.
	However the browser is only Netscape's foot in the door, and
	their revenue comes from their servers and other products.

    In last night's Syracuse, NY newspaper there was a good review of the
    various search engines available for Internet users.  Yahoo was
    discussed, and quite a bit of time was spent on Alta Vista (it was a
    syndicated article, not locally written, so others might have seen it.) 
    What it allowed me to see was both the positive, and in some cases,
    negative aspects of each engine.  And Alta Vista does have some, which 
    the article pointed out, but which we do not hear of.  It also pointed
    out that Yahoo will soon be incorporating some of the better features
    that Alta Vista currently has.
    
    We need to be careful when hyping Alta Vista - it doesn't cure cancer,
    and is not a remedy for the common cold.  And what Yahoo and the others
    have that we do not, is marketing savvy and hype.  Much like other
    Digital products and services in the past, if you cannot market the
    product, it ain't going anywhere.  An example is clustering - Digital
    invented it 20 years ago, but if you look at recent claims by Microsoft
    and Compaq, it would appear that they are the first to do so.  Any bets
    as to which side the customers will ultimately believe?
    
    So when you say spin off Alta Vista (which from a purely business
    standpoint should be done), will the wherewithal to make it a success
    be there?  Or will it just become another nice product from Digital
    that died a quiet death.
    
    Chuck                                                  
    

    Who knows, may be Yahoo or Netscape will make an offer and Digital will
    sell the Alta Vista to make the numbers for some future quarter.
    
    - Vikas

    re .11
    
    Or maybe this quarter...
    
    
    Bart

    And it will probably sell it dirt cheap and put a spin on it
    
    	"To realign our business interest and to focus on our core
    	 competency, we are divesting from the Alta Vista technology.
    
    	 We are glad that dynamic company such as Yahoo has chosen our 
    	 technology and we are very fortunate to have them as our partner"
    
    - Vikas

	But whatever DEC do, all of a sudden they have a hot asset, with a
	value that can be roughly calculated. Which must look good on the
	books.

	And if times do get hard, a bit more family silver to sell...


	Ferdy

I'm in the ISBU, home of AltaVista.  i'm the PL of
one of the products which is being realigned under the
AltaVista branding from POLYCENTER.


all the mtgs i've been to, the word "marketing" is used
extensively.  this pleased me, because as Chuck said in .10,
no marketing, no success.  and, it just so happens that i'm
taking a marketing course right now at night.  so, i can
understand the talk, and so far, it seems like the ISBU is
putting a big emphasis on mkt'g.  i've been around DEC software
engineering for 9 years, and imo, DEC still is not very good
at S/w engineering... bringing good mkt'g together with engineering
will go a long way to making some of these new AltaVista products
successful;
ideas for what to build MUST come from marketing, not from
engineering.

jc

    
    
    re . last few
    
    ... and if we wait long enough to decide what to do, our competitors will
    pass us and Alta Vista will become a 'has been'
    

re                      <<< Note 990.16 by CSCMA::BALICH >>>


you are right on that.
those small nimble companies aren't busy moving people around
and building executive suites... they're making product and
getting it out there.

i've always questioned and wondered why the ISBU is waiting sooo
long to do their big kickoff in early May.
why not now?

.5> FWIW, as a followup, the IPO occured last week (Friday I believe),
.5> offered at $13, closed the trading day at $33, making it the best
.5> IPO for the year thus far.

	Caught this from the DBC Headlines:

[#ALERT,#TECH,YHOO] YAHOO! HITS NEW 52-WEEK LOW OF 16 1/4