INVESTING -- "The Market Is Poised for a Much Better 2002"
"Q: Jeff, you're a growth investor, so in what areas are you seeing the
biggest growth in earnings as the economy recovers next year?
A: I think that one of the areas poised for a rebound is the PC sector,
which will be driven by a new Microsoft operating system, XP, and
hardware that is beginning to become obsolete from Y2K purchases.
Microsoft (NasdaqNM:MSFT) and Intel (NasdaqNM:INTC) are especially
well positioned to benefit from the next upgrade cycle."
This is one of the more spectacularly dense analyst utterances I've
ever seen. Average users (home, office word processing, WWW
browsing) are unlikely to see much difference between a 1999 PC
and a 2002 PC, particularly if they spend $60 and max out the
memory on the older PC. I have a 1996 vintage Dell (then top
of the line $5000 workstation) which does just fine. Still running
NT 4.0 too. Anyone banking on the desperate need to upgrade
that drove 286 - 386 - 486 is going to be disappointed.
If you have a PIII, there's no need for a P4, likewise, if you have
Windows 2000, there's not much incentive to move to XP. |
