Posted on December 5, 2006
Filed Under Companies, Markets & Finance | 1 Comment
Mike Lehman, CFO, presented for Sun Microsystems and was ready to talk about the “new Sun” and the Network is the Computer, the connected society… Oh boy…
There was a complete review of the company plans in April with the new management team and they feel they now have a clear and desirable strategy. Four new products this year already have a $990M run rate. Most feel they are gaining share in servers. Company hasn’t been able to say that since 2000.
Posted on December 5, 2006
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Robin Washington, the CFO, presented to what sounded like a very small audience. Claims that he primary position for the company is a business performance managment software company. Hyperion strives to manage the process from setting goals to building models, planning, monitoring, analyzing and reporting.
Interestingly the presentation dove right into financial metrics which is their heritage and what they are known for (versus the broader category they are claiming.) Read more
Posted on December 5, 2006
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Chris Dedicoat, the President of Europe, wastes a good bit of time presenting the recently reported quarter which was quite good but well known history at this point!
Cisco believes that the architectural growth towards service-oriented architectures is the main reason their business is doing so well. [This is actually a pretty good point to consider.]
Posted on December 5, 2006
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Gene Hodges the CEO (since January of 2006) started by emphasizing their leading position in Web filtering. For security and productivity reasons, companies around the world are focused on controlling the flow of Web content in and out of their networks.
The company is increasingly going after security applications with their new ThreatSeeker application to leverage their position and compete with firms like McAfee. The strategy is to reposition the company from the “nice to have” URL filter market of $750M to the “must have” layer of network security software of $5B. This will pit them against firewall vendors (CSCO, CHKP) and Anti-Virus vendors (SYMC, MFE, MSFT.) Read more
Posted on December 5, 2006
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Mark Hawkins gave a punchy presentation on the company. Much more energy and confidence than MSFT; quite a contrast.
Key points included very diverse set of products with none representing more than 3% of sales. The company has proven during the last few years they can deliver reliable results even as the individual end-markets ebb and flow. Investors have appreciated this and given the company a better multiple.
Posted on December 5, 2006
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Chris Liddell gave a fairly dull “shareholder value” oriented presentation. They did talk about 13-15% revenue growth driven by near-term release of flagship products Vista, Office and Exchange. This is better than the 8-11% growth they posted for FY05 and FY06.
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Posted on December 4, 2006
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We’ve upgraded to a full-time office in France. It’s required a move to a new building but the space is very good in terms of location and has a reasonable vibe for a “corporate space.” The place is just outside Paris in what can only be described as a sort of corporate Disneyland called La Defense. Most of the tall corporate buildings are located here rather than in the city limits. To complete the picture we have three 4 story high sculptures in our courtyard including one of a human thumb. Yes, that’s right, a 4 story tall thumb.
Still in all it’s a productive place to be just a short train ride from home and a few minutes to central Paris. The offices are big, the bandwidth is flowing freely and our ideas are begging to be researched, refined and produced from the land of many cheeses.
We’re open for business and visits here at 9-11 Allee de l’Arche, Coubevoie Cedex France 92671.
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