MB, one more thing. I have a link about the recent Dataquest projection. An analyst says that PC growth in revenue terms will be single digits and says its a very big deal that its going to be so low. biz.yahoo.com
Contrast that with the following from Motley Fool...Illogical would be an overstatement.
HEROES
Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT - news) rose $2 7/16 to $94 5/8 on anticipation of its third quarter earnings report to be released after Wednesday's close. Last month,
the company said Q3 EPS would be about $0.04 higher than the analysts' mean estimate of $0.44, versus $0.40 for the year-earlier period, thanks to strong sales
of business software. Even though analysts quickly revised their EPS estimates to a mean of $0.48, some now expect Microsoft to report even higher earnings. The
company will broadcast its conference call live on the Web at http://ww w.events.audionet.com/events/microsoft/q1earnings/ at 2:30 p.m. Pacific time (5:30 p.m.
Eastern time). Separately, in an interview with Reuters Microsoft Executive Vice President Steve Ballmer said the PC market is still growing at about 15% despite
the economic downturn in Asia. He said sales in the Mideast have increased 40% during the fiscal year 1998, which ends in June, and he expects the region to offer
the fastest sales growth for the company in the next four to five years.
International Business Machines (NYSE:IBM - news) moved higher in after-hours trading, gaining $3 1/2 to $111 1/4 as the company reported Q1 EPS of
$1.06, a penny higher than the First Call mean estimate. Meanwhile, other PC makers rallied today after market research firm Dataquest said it expects PC
shipments to increase 15.6% to 93.1 million units this year, thanks to the under-$1,000 PCs. The cheaper machines are expected to hold back sales growth, which
is anticipated to rise just 6.4%. Dell Computer (Nasdaq:DELL - news) gained $2 3/16 to $69 11/16, and Gateway 2000 (NYSE:GTW - news) jumped $2 3/4
to $50 3/4 as it also announced it will target the business market with a new division dedicated to building more formal ties to dealers. Micron Technology
(NYSE:MU - news) added $1 1/4 to $29 1/2, while Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HWP - news) gained $15/16 to $64 3/8 |
