Re: [ga] Verisign stock price falls off a cliff

[Jeff Williams <jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com>]

WXW and all assembly members,

  I have to say by in large Bear Stearns did a pretty good analysis
here of VRSN mid term future and present problems on the revenue
side.  Yes as per normal, VRSN is no longer considered a
"growth story" company.  That is as it should be at this stage of it's
history...  I am a little bit in disagreement in the trading range
(10 - 37) that Bear stearns is projecting for VRSN on the high
end side...

William X Walsh wrote:

> Just in case anyone still cares, VRSN was down another -1.82, -18.40%
> from last week's close.
>
> Poor Verisign  ;)
>
> http://yahoo.smartmoney.com/onedaywonder/index.cfm?story=20020426&afl=yahoo
>
> >From the above article:
>
> "We believe the company's core business could shrink for the next two
> years," wrote Bear Stearns analyst Chris Kwak in a Friday research
> note in which he cut his rating on the stock to Unattractive from
> Attractive and his price target to $10 from $37. "We fear that 2002
> and 2003 could be extraordinarily tough years for VeriSign, especially
> since shrinkage in deferred revenue has already begun, hampering
> visibility…. In our view, the company can no longer be categorized as
> a growth story." Kwak doesn't own shares of VeriSign; Bear Stearns has
> an investment-banking releationship with the company.
>
> Saturday, April 27, 2002, 11:39:52 PM, Andy Gardner wrote:
>
> > At 1:36 AM -0400 4/28/02, Sotiris Sotiropoulos wrote:
> >>Well, Dan, here's what Stratton Sclavos had to say:
> >>
> >>"The sustained technology downturn definitely caught up with us," Chief
> >>Executive Stratton Sclavos told analysts in a conference call after the
> >>markets closed Thursday, citing a contraction in its domain name
> >>business <http://news.com.com/2100-1023-826603.html> which provides
> >>addresses for Internet sites."
>
> > It's not the technology down turn that caught up with them - the base
> > "technology" sector still requires pretty much the same number of domains
> > as before.
>
> > What caught up with them was:
>
> > 1. Giving away net/org domains under a "protect your name" scam, putting
> > them on the books as sales, and having to delete the lot when the
> > registrants see through the scam and don't bother renewing at their
> > inflating registration fees.
>
> > 2. Giving speculators  credit to register speculative names, only to find
> > said speculators couldn't unload the names, didn't want to renew them and
> > couldn't pay their account at NSI. Just one speculator unearthed involved
> > more than 1 million dollars worth of unpaid credit (a Belgian doctor), and
> > saw NSI attempting to recover their costs by selling the names through a
> > special account at their "Great Domains" auction site. Very few sold at the
> > "special price" would required a 2 year registration through NSI. Other
> > cases were in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. And there were probably
> > thousands of smaller cases that added up to a fair amount as well. I wonder
> > if the shareholders ever got to read about that little cock-up in the
> > financial statements?
>
> > 3. Then there's their latest little game to try and take the seam out of
> > .biz by offering the near-equivalent .bz (belize). After buying the rights
> > to that ccTLD, I think the dollar signs in Verisign's eyes disappeared when
> > the results of their big domain sale via eBay came in:
> > http://www.stores.ebay.com/store=47260199  computers/bz and gay.bz for only
> > $10,000. WHAT A BARGAIN. All those expensive names and no bids. One must
> > wonder how much they paid for the rights to .bz? Another profit centre that
> > looks like it's going to be debt item for Verisign. And do the shareholders
> > know about it? Not bloody likely!
>
> > Note that Verisign has zero user feedback becuase so far it's failed to
> > make a sale (all those names are now onto their second auction attempt).
> > $10000 to register a name - is Verisign trying to be like idealabs?
>
> > 4. Then there's their recent postal-fraud attempt at sending out disguised
> > invoices with domain transfer terms hidden in the small print.
>
> > 5. And there's all the sideline ideas the registry is trying to run to try
> > and keep their finger in all the pies - keywords, IDN, webnumbers, phone
> > registries. Pulllease.
>
> > 6. And the continued attempts to block transfers out of their registrar.
>
> > 7. And the continued ineptness that sees people lose their domains on a
> > daily basis due to NSI's billing database mess.
>
> > When the shareholder finally see these guys for what they really are and it
> > turns into a penny stock, is ICANN ready to rescue the registry system and
> > assign it to a company that is happy to be the C/N registry, do it well,
> > and not get sidetracked into the other bullshit? THAT should be a security
> > requirement for the largest registry on the planet.
>
> > Wkae up ICANN! All your corporate funders are going down the toilet! TIme
> > to actually start doing something, rather than just feathering your nest
> > with your projected revenues!
>
> --
> Best regards,
> William X Walsh <william@wxsoft.info>
> --
> Save Internet Radio!
> CARP will kill Webcasting!
> http://www.saveinternetradio.org/
>
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Regards,
--
Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman for INEGroup - (Over 121k members/stakeholdes strong!)
CEO/DIR. Internet Network Eng/SR. Java/CORBA Development Eng.
Information Network Eng. Group. INEG. INC.
E-Mail jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com
Contact Number:  972-244-3801 or 214-244-4827
Address: 5 East Kirkwood Blvd. Grapevine Texas 75208


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