INTERVIEW
A:I think it's a little bit of both. You have to look at the individual acquisitions and understand that each was made for their own independent competitive reasons. If you do look for common threads, you will find one or two being that each of those industries has a dominant company where others are trying to compete with them. SAP is the dominant ERP company with more than twice the share of its other competitors. So it makes sense that you can put a couple of them together and improve their position against the leader... In the case of Yahoo, they've seen Google come from nowhere in five years to take the dominant position in search, and that's Yahoo's primary business. So I think Yahoo felt it needed to acquire Overture. Do the institutions know something that the rest of us don't? Or is this a case of institutional herding, where fund managers are just jumping on and out of hot stocks or sectors? It's almost as if the clock got turned back to 1999.
I don't think you can generalise. Certainly, if you looked at all the companies losing money that only had "eyeballs" and only that, anybody can make a case that it was a ridiculous investing scenario. But even back then, there was an eBay or a Yahoo, which were good ideas. A company that's growing at, say 30 percent, and is profitable and increasing earnings, deserves a high multiple. Now, whether that should be 30, 50 or 100 is a temporal issue. In time all those multiples will come down and will find their place. Larry Ellison has talked a lot about how the software industry is destined to undergo changes -- slowing growth, increasing consolidation, etc. Is the software business being fated to undergo consolidation? How do you see things evolving?
Ellison has an ability to say things and cause the press to react. That's what he's best at, not at developing products. It's like he's going to say everybody is going to die. Well, of course we're going to die. Guess what? The software industry is going to slow down and consolidate. The fact that he's said it after the greatest wealth creation and bust makes it more dramatic. So, yes, he's right. But does that mean innovation is dead? That Silicon Valley is dead? That's ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. But will we ever see a period like 1998 again? No. But will it go back to the investing dynamics that we've seen in the last 30 years? Sure.
Talkback
We think that we have Siebels bigger platform.
[ PAYKWIK ON DEMAND ERM
By D.L. Neumann, President, DATAPAK, INC.
Web: www.paykwik.com
Email: pay@paykwik.com
BRIEF BIOGRAPHICAL DESCRIPTION
Mr. Neumann has pioneered shared computing over the past 50 years. He has applied this experience to a totally new and modern concept in computer utility service.
Abstract
TEXT FOR ABSTRACT
Summary:
PAYKWIK Employee Resource Management is the worlds first interactive hands-on real-time Internet On Demand service.
PAYKWIK On Demand service transforms independent and diverse corporate back office employee management systems and banking into one giant interactive and highly cost-efficient network driven system.
Users are self-sufficient to do what they do best on a 24/7 clock. A simple usage fee cost effectively matches corporate expense precisely with needs in the same manner that the Power Utility charges only for electricity used.
PAYKWIK includes employee administration and payroll for employee and third party deduction payments, direct deposit, 401k retirement, cafeteria plan insurance, child support, garnishment, and federal and state tax payments and reporting.
Since many Banks offer these services, PAYKWIK ERM is the perfect enhancement to interface and feed Internet Banking. PAYKWIK can transparently export to the Internet Bank for these common activities. It improves efficiency and logically expands Internet Banking.
PAYTRAK captures history and performance for trend analysis, grade creep, industry comparisons, overtime review, and vacation and sick liabilities. It is the perfect companion for On Demand Employee Compensation and Performance systems.
PAYKWIK is the ultimate cutting edge On demand solution culminating years of design effort.
SUBHEADING
PAYKWIK Employee Resource Management is the worlds first interactive hands-on real-time Internet On Demand service.
It results from a long history of development that started with a shared drum driven IBM 650 computer in 1957.
It grew to a time-shared computer system pioneered with the General Electric Corporation in the 1960's.
Access was via leased telephone lines and the ARPANET, the precursor to today's Internet. Terminals were 5 and then 8 channel paper tape driven teletypes.
The ARPANET was packet switched, as is the Internet today. Information traversed a giant loop until it found its home computer. The Internet uses this same technology with 100 times the speed and a worldwide network.
Subsequently, this center became the 11th largest super computer in the world.
PAYKWIK has purloined this vast experience and technology into the PAYKWIK Internet On Demand ERM service.
Underutilized computer sharing technology exists. It can create a composite super computer with 100's of diverse and geographically distanced computers linked together via the Internet.
As before, only a few government computers are sharing in this advanced computer technology.
This capability in conjunction with the PAYKWIK ERM design will transform independent and diverse back office employee management systems and banking into one giant interactive and highly cost-efficient net-work driven system.
PAYKWIK is a grass root self financed effort. It compares in computer space to Burt Rutan pushing his home built rocket ship into outer space. When compared with NASA and ongoing activities, both were built for pocket change.
PAYKWIK contains and employs all the elements and hooks and handles to integrate the appropriate elements into one huge state-of-the-art tightly integrated system.
PAYKWK includes employee administration and payroll for employee and third party deduction payments, direct deposit, 401k retirement, cafeteria plan insurance, child support, garnishment, and federal and state tax payments and reporting.
Many Banks offer these services, so PAYKWIK is the perfect enhancement to interface and feed Internet Banking. PAYKWIK can transparently export