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Five analysts and top management from eighteen sector firms examine the Document & Database Management Software sector in this special 93-page issue from The Wall Street Transcript, available at (212/952-7433) or http://www.twst.com/info/info407.htm

TWST: Brendan, what do you see going on?

Mr. Barnicle: I think that’s right. I think one of the things that we’ll see coming out of this recovery is that, whereas coming into this we were able to bet sectors, I think now you need to be much more company-specific and product-specific about who the winners are going to be. You won’t be able to just bet a whole sector like CRM or supply chain. Coming out of this, customer spending will also be very company-specific. Companies that are having more challenging times obviously are going to be slower to spend more on software. And I think this theme of getting databases to interact more effectively and in more of a ubiquitous manner is really going to be critical. At this point the technology still isn’t there. In some ways, the slowdown in the market has been a healthy thing for some of the sectors that have been involved in the collaboration process, things like supply chain and CRM. A year ago a lot of things were sold that the technology really couldn’t provide. You had sort of one-off things being built, and some of those customers have been disappointed with the results. In this intervening year, companies have been able to focus back on the technology and just get the R&D and the products to the level where the sales force had been selling them a year ago. I think, ultimately, that’s a lot healthier for the industry

TWST: And Brendan, do you have any comments on Oracle (Nasdaq:ORCL)?

Mr. Barnicle: Sure. 11i is a massive endeavor. No one has ever tried to do that before, and as Chris rightly points out, they’re going against those that specialize in specific areas. The data points I continue to hear about, which are encouraging, especially over the last six months, are that they continue to make progress and improve the different individual modules, so that they are becoming increasingly competitive. They’re not there yet, but they’re making nice progress. The other thing that I’ve heard more recently is that as companies look to contain spending, they’re looking for single-point solutions to solve the biggest pain points within their organization, and that would somewhat argue against the suite. But Oracle, and to some degree SAP (SAP)as well, have developed products where they can sell off the individual module of the suite and fill that need. So they’re actually doing slightly better than expected because of the advances that they’ve made with 11i. So that part is encouraging, and I think we’ll continue to see them make progress on it, despite negative press. There are customers who are using it, and increasingly customers will. Oracle has an amazing installed base already out there that they can go to, and inevitably they’ll be finding more ways to tie 11i into some of the other products like Database. The other thing I would add is something that Chris alluded to earlier, which is the application server business — a $1 billion or so industry right now that’s well-poised to be a $10 billion industry over the next couple of years. It could be the same size as the database industry, or at least rival it. Oracle has a very compelling offering with their new J2EE compliant version of 9iAS, so they also could make headway in that area. And that’s encouraging as well. They’ve got their core database business, which will grow at a 10% or 15% organic growth rate, but some higher growth could be expected in the applications business, as well as in the application server business.

This special issue includes:

1) Document & Database Management Software - In an in-depth (10,300 words) Analyst Roundtable, Robert Austrian, Managing Director at Banc of America Securities LLC, Brendan Barnicle, Vice Principle at Pacific Crest Securities and Christopher Shilakes, First Vice President at Merrill Lynch & Co., examine the outlook for the sector including, long term trends, developments in technology and share specific stock recommendations.

2) The TWST confidential Off-The-Record survey of management performance at seven sector firms asked market insiders about the ability of management teams to create shareholder value.

3)Storage Hardware & Software Stocks - In an in-depth (2,600 words) Analyst Interview, Nitsan Hargil, Senior Analyst at Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co., Inc. examines the outlook for the sector and shares specific stock recommendations.

4)Enterprise Software - In an in-depth (2,000 words) Analyst Interview, Greg Vogel, Managing Director at Banc of America Securities LLC, examines the outlook for the sector and shares specific stock recommendations.

5) CEO interviews (average 2,500 words). Top management of eighteen sector firms examine the outlook for their firm and the sector.