[转贴] CNN: Is Silicon Valley dead or just asleep?

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PALO ALTO, California (Reuters) -- In the midst of Silicon Valley's biggest downturn in years, two of the industry's biggest names have taken opposing views on whether the software business will return to life.

Larry Ellison, captain of the Valley's biggest software shop Oracle Corp., kicked off the great debate at the start of the year by declaring that the industry's best days are over.

Ellison, known for his outspoken views, was downcast in January as he told Barrons weekly newspaper that high-tech's mind-boggling growth spurt is over -- never to return again.

"It's (Silicon Valley) not coming back ... The industry's maturing. The Valley will never be what it was," Ellison said.

Tom Siebel, Ellison's biggest Silicon Valley rival and CEO of Siebel Systems Inc., has shot back with the view that the industry is poised to start growing again soon.

Siebel made his upbeat remarks in a strange setting -- a conference call reviewing quarterly software sales that dropped to half what they were a year earlier. Despite the fall in sales, he declared: "This is a growth story."

Siebel isn't alone in seeing better days ahead.

"I don't agree with Ellison that growth is dead," said Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Charlie Di Bona, who argues that high-tech is not some monolith lumbering down one path.

The growth figures could be more modest than during previous spurts like the dotcom era, but Di Bona said some software makers still have double-digit, or better than 10 percent, growth in their futures.

"I would even argue that Microsoft is a growth company," Di Bona said, referring to the world's biggest software company started by Ellison rival Bill Gates.

That's even though Microsoft has had trouble growing in new markets beyond the desktop computer software business it has long dominated. And despite the recent move to begin paying its first-ever dividend, a mark of growing corporate maturity.

JMP Securities analyst Pat Walravens, another proponent of the "software has a future" camp, sees the long-term trend for software to be one in which it gobbles up an ever bigger share of total technology spending.

Walravens, who like Di Bona is an independent analyst, said he expects the industry to grab an even larger percentage as it packs more intellectual property into software, and hardware becomes more of a commodity. Software represents $46 per every $100 spent on technology, up from $2 per $100 in the 1960s when most went toward hardware. There is room to pick up still more, he argues.

Stalled growth
If there is something that virtually everyone agrees on, it's that technology spending will remain stalled in the near-term.

Over the last two years, SAP AG, PeopleSoft Inc., J.D. Edwards & Co., i2 Technologies Inc., Siebel, Oracle and others -- have blamed everything from the weak economy to war jitters and the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome for weak new software sales.

But some analysts say the industry's problems go deeper. Customers already have all the technology products they need and software makers haven't come up with innovative new products to spur buying. Indeed, many are fed up after being aggressively sold complex systems that cost millions to install and did not deliver.

"There's a lot of backlash," said First Albany analyst Mark Murphy. As a result, sales of former "hot" software products, like those that automate human resources, accounting, call centers, and online purchasing have shrunk.

Through the technology slump, established companies like Oracle and Microsoft have come up with ways to win more recurring revenue from existing customers through licensing and maintenance fees.

Last year Microsoft shifted to a long-term corporate licensing plan that has inoculated it from the slumping software sales that have plummeted revenues at other software companies.

Growth engines
So who will grow? While the biggest companies are struggling with cost-cutting and trying to push sales up, some areas look promising. Indeed, the industry has made a habit of making doomsayers look silly in the past. A decade ago, nobody forecast the growth of the Web as a mass medium.

Di Bona says Web services, a new platform for linking computer systems and applications, will spur growth over the next few years at infrastructure companies like BEA Systems Inc. -- a maker of software and tools to build, run and integrate Web-based applications -- and Microsoft, which is making a major Web services play with its .Net initiative.

The next major cycle of growth, still several years away, will come as customers buy applications to run on those new Web services platforms, Di Bona added.

Murphy, like other analysts, now likes business intelligence companies, which sell software that sifts business data to identify trends, such as those that make marketing campaigns more effective.

Investors already have taken note and bid up the stocks of players like Business Objects SA and MicroStrategy Inc. So far this year, Business Objects shares have gained 40 percent and MicroStrategy's stock price is 80 percent higher.


(http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/biztech/05/06/software.debate.reut/index.html)
 
硅谷经历最严重衰退 软件业是否还有未来?




软件已经不再是一个朝阳产业了吗?

在过去数年硅谷经历的有史以来最严重的衰退中,软件产业的二个大腕就软件产业是否会重振昔日雄风持截然不同的观点:硅谷最大的软件厂商甲骨文公司的掌门人埃利森在今年年初表示,软件产业的黄金时代已经结束,从而拉开了这一争论的序幕。

以直率闻名的埃利森在1月份接受采访时说,高科技产业令人难以置信的高增长已经成为过去。他说,硅谷不会再回来了,软件产业正在逐渐成熟起来,硅谷不会再现昔日雄风。

Siebel公司的老板汤姆是埃利森在硅谷最大的竞争对手,他曾经多次表示软件产业将很快复苏的观点。尽管公司的销售较上年同期减少了一半儿,但汤姆说,我们仍然在进步。认为软件产业前程似锦的并非只有Siebel公司一家。桑福德公司的分析师查理表示,我不能同意埃利森作出的软件产业已经停止增长的观点。尽管增长幅度与以前相比可能会低一些,但有的软件厂商认为它们未来仍然会出现2位数的增长,其中微软可能成为比较突出的一个。尽管微软公司在台式机软件之外的市场遇到了一些麻烦,但这毕竟瑕不掩玉,不影响它成为不断增长的软件巨头。

JMP证券公司的分析师帕特是另一个“软件产业未来光明”论调的拥护者,他认为,软件产业的长期趋势是它将在高科技投资中占有越来越高的比例。他说,随着软件中知识产权的增多,它会获得更高的市场份额,而硬件产品将成为大路货,软件在高科技投资中的比例已经由60年代的2%提高到了46%,而且这一数字还有继续增长的空间。

大家没有疑义的是,在近期内高科技投资的增长将仍然趋于停止。在过去二年来,SAP、PeopleSoft、i2、Siebel、甲骨文等许多软件厂商都为销售下滑找了许多借口。但一些分析人士指出,软件产业的问题要严重得多,客户已经有了所需要的技术,而厂商又没有开发出能够刺激市场需求的新技术。事实上,许多企业在投巨资购买复杂的系统后,都因不能充分利用这些系统而感到烦恼。

象实现人力资源管理、财务、呼叫中心和网络购物自动化的这些过去的“热门”产品的销售已经大幅度萎缩。在高科技萎缩期间,象甲骨文、微软等这样的大公司能够通过许可和维护费用从现有客户身上获得更多的销售收入。

哪家公司会出现增长呢?尽管大企业在为节支和增加销售而努力,但一些领域仍然大有希望。在历史上,业界的预测一向比较悲观,十年前,没有人能够预测到Web会成长为主要媒体。

查理表示,作为连接计算机系统和应用软件的新型平台,Web服务将在未来数年内刺激BEA、微软等基础软件厂商的增长。他说,下一个增长周期还需要数年时间,它将随着客户购买能够在新Web服务平台上运行的应用软件而到来。
 
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