"DO you know how much memory NT takes!!!"
Yes! The machine that I'm on right now is a 266 Pentium, 64MB RAM, running NT! And its a dog! (CPQ BTW). Perhaps adopters of NT will stimulate the demand side. However, I think there is so much price pressure from over-capacity and Asia's willingness to dump, that it will be difficult to sustain any kind of price increase. Plus, what about the Rambus deal with Intel -- how will this proprietary technology impact garden variety DRAM? BWDIK?
From Briefing.com
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SHOE MAKERS. Kids and shoes aren't what they used to be. While the swoosh logo by Nike (NKE 39 11/16 -5/8) is
imprinted in every kid's brain, the cachet that it used to command seems to be on the wane. Kids today are not as strongly
attached to brand names, although everyone still seems to wear the same apparel products. Still, the strong marketing grip
that many of these athletic footwear makers once possessed has lessen and the footwear companies no longer have significant
control over prices. Accordingly, with a more discriminating audience, sales and prices have started to lag, leaving many
one-time high flyers rattled in their oversized performance shoe. The writing on the wall has been in place for some time. Yet,
yesterday'swarning by The Finish Line (FINL 9 15/16 -3 13/16) that results for its Q2 and full-year would not meet
expectations, it has awakened investors to the notion that if this athletic footwear is not selling well, then others may also be
having similar problems. To be sure with affinity products not having the same appeal with kids, and with Asia still very much
off the demand loop, shoe makers are having a rough time. After all, how many pairs of $150 shoes does a kid need? This
trend is not likely to be reversed any time soon as back-to-school sales for shoes seems to be off to a slow start given latest
same-store sales data. If kids are not soon enticed to buy the new style of footwear, expect fire sales to erupt and put
additional pressure on margins and earnings. Kids seem to be going back to basics insofar as shoes is concerned, which in the
past meant that, shoes were a means and not an end to getting from point A to point B. Maybe show makers are beginning to
see the larger picture.
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