By David Sims
[email protected]
The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music
is a new recording of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 by the BBC Philharmonic under
Gianandrea Noseda which you can download for free, along with Symphonies 7, 8
and tomorrow 9, here:
In the wake of Oracle’s triumphant fourth quarter earnings
report announcement yesterday, speculation
is on what Larry Ellison will do for an encore.
The acquisition of PeopleSoft
went smoother than many had expected, at least as far as affecting the bottom
line goes, so the office pools now are on who Oracle will buy up next – or
whether they’ll stand pat and take care of Fusion first.
Robert
Wallberg’s Street
Patrol column reminds readers that he’s been suggesting Oracle’s
application servers and middleware foe BEA Systems, or business
intelligence software vendor Hyperion Solutions as targets, and
throws Siebel
and Business Objects in the mix. “Given the relative ease in
integrating PeopleSoft, don’t be surprised if Oracle goes after one of these
companies sooner rather than later,” he says.
Pop over to BusinessWeek
this morning for some heavy hinting that it’d be a good idea for Oracle to pick up Siebel pretty soon. Naturally
Ellison has to scotch the idea in the press – “we have no plans to buy anything that doesn’t
contribute to our five-year plan to grow profitability by at least 20% per year,”
he announced loudly.
“Yet, in practically the next breath,” BusinessWeek
writes, “he laid out his strategy for buying software companies with narrow
profit margins but rich maintenance-revenue streams, adding them to Oracle’s
portfolio, and stripping out costs.” That sure sounds like Siebel to First
CoffeeSM. BusinessWeek
thinks this means he’ll go after either Siebel or Hyperion next.
“Siebel would be a good addition because it brings $1 billion in maintenance
revenues. But there’s no reason to rush,” analyst Brendan Barnicle of Pacific Crest Securities tells BusinessWeek. But he thinks Oracle should
finish its three-year “Fusion” of combining Oracle and PeopleSoft application
code before any more high-profile takeovers.
“There is a concern that Oracle will do something stupid but
I don’t believe they will,” John DiFucci,
an analyst with Bear Stearns tells Paul
LaMonica of CNN/Money. “They will be fiscally disciplined with their
acquisition strategy.”
DiFucci thinks Siebel and BEA are safe as long as their
stock’s overvalued. “Oracle won’t pay too much. It’s only going to buy as long
as the price is right,” he says.
Yet “don’t be surprised if Oracle makes a move on Siebel,
however. The outfit certainly fits Ellison’s target profile,” BusinessWeek writes. First CoffeeSM
reminds readers that former Siebel exec Eileen
McPartland is now heading Oracle’s North America consulting as well.
Of course just because you can doesn’t mean you should. Sheryl Kingstone, CRM program manager
Yankee Group tells Colin
Beasty “Do they need [to acquire] Siebel? Not necessarily. Do they need
other applications to round things out? Yeah.”
Remember, Siebel approached Ellison at his home about a year
and half ago about selling the company to Oracle. Ellison said he was too
involved with purchasing PeopleSoft at the time to seriously consider the
possibility. He might listen now.
…
Poor Nortel – even news of a nice deal in China isn’t enough. Company shareholders vented angrily Wednesday at a lengthy
annual meeting, according to the Associated Press, the first time Nortel’s
dared hold one in over two years.
They announced Harry J. Pearce as chairman of the board and
Pearce must have wondered what the heck he was getting into.
This came the same day as news that China Mobile, the country’s
largest wireless carrier, selected
Nortel to upgrade its optical backbone network in Zhejiang province to
address accelerating subscriber growth and prepare for migration to third
generation services.
Yet “speaker after speaker came to the microphone during the
six-hour meeting, complaining about a wide range of troubles, including
accounting deceptions, thousands of lost jobs and a withered stock price,” the
AP reported, noting that the meeting dragged on for about six hours.
One woman succinctly stated the feelings of thousands of
Nortel shareholders: “We feel so totally abused in this whole schmozzle.”
In January, the AP reports, Nortel restated its financial
results for 2001, 2002 and 2003, slashing its reported profits by hundreds of
millions and revising billions of dollars in revenue and other accounting
figures.
Remember when Nortel shares were above $60 back in the Internet
bubble? You can buy one for $2.69 today.
...
Eircom, Ireland’s incumbent telecoms
operator, is announcing that it has used
Netcentrex
Business Consulting Services to assist in the definition of eircom’s
VoIP service strategy, which led to a 10 million euro ($12 million)
development program for service deployment in Ireland over 5 years.
“Eircom is deploying a portfolio of VoIP products,” confirmed
Sean Loughman, Head of Innovation at eircom, developing “customized VoIP
products for the Irish market.”
Not just for the fun of it. ComReg’s Quarterly Report
finds that fixed-line revenues, eircom’s potatoes and Guinness, dropped from 60
percent in 2003 to 49 percent of the total electronic communications market at
the end of March. Carrier pre-select service is also hammering eircom, who can’t
bank on DSL broadband since Ireland’s broadband penetration rate is one of the
lowest in Europe at 34 per 1,000 inhabitants, up from an anemic 8 per 1,000 in
2003.
Piling on the bad news for eircom, a recent Analysys
study finds that mobile and VoIP services will account for more than 60
percent of residential voice spend in Western Europe, and predicts that around
25 percent of households will have abandoned traditional telephony by 2010. Eircom’s
POTS will account for just 39 percent of residential voice services by 2010,
Analysys thinks.
First CoffeeSM applauds eircom’s initiative and wishes
them the luck of, well, the Irish.
…
Rocklin, California-based Girlfriend Media Group is
announcing today the launch of total 180!,
which they’re billing as, and First CoffeeSM has no reason to doubt
is, “the first magazine for a growing,
yet overlooked, demographic: the professional woman turned stay-at-home mom.”
It’s set to premiere in November 2005 for the “more than 6
million women,” according to 2003 census figures, “who have left their
full-time careers to raise their children,” It’s for these CHOs – Chief
Household Officers. “We're right there with you; we hear what you are
screaming; and we know exactly what you need. In a reality-based style and
voice, we make you laugh, cry and – most of all – feel fabulously validated for
who you are, as you are, here and now,” it promises.
Debbie Klett, president of Girlfriend Media Group, stay-at-home mom and publisher
of total 180! has 14 years of
publishing experience and promises“reality-based articles” such as, “Mach 3
With My Hair On Fire,” “Martha Doesn’t Live Here” and “The Sex Scorecard.” (Hint
guys – “Asks about my day” is +10 points. “Doesn’t listen to the answer” is
-25.) Total 180!’s companion Web
site, www.total180mag.com,
debuts today.
“Our goal with this magazine is to create the same
female-bonding phenomenon that Sex in the
City and Desperate Housewives
brought to TV,” Klett says.
Total 180!’s founders Klett, Kristie
Zamboanga, Andrea Bandle, and Sheri Heuer conceived the idea over coffee in
November 2004. All former career women turned stay-at-home moms, they met while
working part-time for a local magazine.
If read off-site hit http://blog.tmcnet.com/telecom-crm/
for the fully-linked version. First CoffeeSM accepts no sponsored
content – and never drinks decaf, either.
