CC notes:
at a bottom, but not at an upturn. We get a sense from our customers that they are locking their budgets in, and won't be cutting it in the way they did for the first half of this year.
for Q2, expect 0-5% revenue growth, with internet down, enterprise sales up; proforma EPS .01-.02
at the end of the quarter, we saw an uptick in demand, but we aren't ready to call this the beginning of a trend.
IT budgets have stopped going down; internet and technology customers are weakest, others are mixed; expect a slow recovery
gross margins 56%, flat with 4Q, due to cost-cutting; GM more likely to moderate than go up; we've seen our competitors, especially EMC, give big price discounts to be competitive; we are not going to lose anything on price, and our sales force understands that; I see price pressures continuing
customer mix, by % of revenues:
20% internet
25% total for 4 targetted enterprise verticals (financial services, oil and gas, manufacturers, telcos)
Europe weak, Asia solid
(not sure if I got this right)
BTB slightly above 1:1 this quarter
We like our current strategy, we don't intend to "push terabytes in order to sell software later" |
