Pfeiffer Says IT Spending Will Not
Halt
(04/13/99, 3:47 p.m. ET)
By Edward F. Moltzen, Computer Reseller News
Compaq's CEO, Eckhard Pfeiffer, said there
will not be a massive halt on IT spending
during 1999 as year preparation issues get
closer to their deadlines.
Pfeiffer said at a news conference that there may be
some larger companies halting spending late in the year,
but other companies will not.
"There will not be a nuclear winter," Pfeiffer said. "We
believe there will be multiple segments that will not be
affected by Y2K spending," he said, including
consumer, small- and midsized-business segments.
Pfeiffer spoke with reporters following his keynote
address at Compaq's Innovate99 conference for
partners, being held near the company's corporate
headquarters in Houston. The conference is being held
the same week Compaq has disclosed it will not meet
Wall Street expectations for profit or sales when it
reports its first quarter earnings, but Pfeiffer has said
that will not impede the company's advances.
The year 2000 issue has been a concern of some Wall
Street analysts, who said they believe the PC industry
could be hit hard if IT spending halts in advance of New
Year's Eve. However, some Compaq customers have
said they will put the brakes on IT spending later in the
year, while some customers have said they will move
"full speed ahead," Pfeiffer said.
Regarding Compaq's integration into its operations of
Digital Equipment, which it bought last year, Pfeiffer
said the work is continuing almost a year after the deal
was completed.
"The day-to-day integration of tens of thousands of
employees [happens] on an ongoing basis," Pfeiffer
said. "The synergies we are seeing are growing day by
day as people learn to work beside each other."
Pfeiffer defended Compaq's decision to create a new
Internet branding initiative called NonStop eBusiness
Solutions, acknowledging IBM, its bitter Armonk,
N.Y.-based rival, has been using the term aggressively
for two years. While the naming and branding may be
new, Compaq has been deploying e-commerce and
e-business solutions and has market leadership in Web
services, Pfeiffer said.
"The name is generic," Pfeiffer said. "It is not protected
or anything. It is everybody's."
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