Sonki,
OK, this is just my general sense of the call and I would hope others will correct this or give their own perspective. Overall, it seemed that they were somewhat less intensely optimistic about the future as compared to their previous conference call but they were generally still positive. Last quarter's conference call was very upbeat, I thought, and I think since they missed estimates after being so positive last time that they were a little more restrained this time. They said that quarter-end push didn't pay off like they hoped. They seem worried about SE Asia both from the point of view of currency translation and lower demand due to upheaval in those economies. They said their caution going forward was mainly in selective geographic areas. At the enterprise level they think their products are perfectly good but they need more sales and service coverage and they hired a lot in that area. On the desktop, they think price/performance v. wintel workstations is fine, and they hope to do better there as more solaris applications come along. McNealy said IBM-Lotus Kona bean announcement in November was very important and would help in that area. Java in general will also help them provide applications that will allow them to play better in desktop area. Still expect storage to be "huge." Sort of glad HP and DEC are making new offerings in UNIX because it shows the viability of the platform. Most worried about IBM, rather than DEC or HP, because of the great support they can offer. No glaring negatives. Mcneally said that it all came down to execution. He saw "open field running" for the company and a lot of opportunities. Sun suggested that as far as their 1 bln capital-raising shelf stuff goes that they were leaning more toward debt than equity. Anyway, not sure what this all adds up to. I'm no analyst, but I'd be surprised if analysts upped earnings estimates after hearing this (my gut tells me they might get shaved a bit, but I don't know what the analysts were thinking before this). I guess I'd call their outlook for themselves as conventionally guardedly optimistic. Anyone else want to take a stab at this?
Andy |
