Elwood:
Don't have the piece on PC growth in Europe which you asked about, but did catch some parts of a CNBC Europe magazine feature today with in-depth interviews with computer industry CEO's and senior executives, such as CPQ's top Europe man (sorry didn't catch his name) and Dave House, the new CEO of Nortel, Gates of MSFT. (I was the only one they did not interview).
The predominant theme was that there is scope for dramatic growth in PC sales in Europe. There is the catch-up factor with the US in terms of the percentage of market penetration in small and medium size businesses and also in homes, schools and other institutions. And then the further percentage penetration which will come with technological advances and the gradual removal of certain structural barriers and the lowering of costs.
They examined some of the structural barriers. These included national boundaries and with them the plethora of standards and regulatory agencies, not to mention different languages and cultural attitudes. These are being smoothed out within each European countries and on a pan-European basis by the European Community.
They focused on the the high cost of telecommunications in Europe, relative to the US. This has inhibited extensive use of networks and the internet. In the UK, for example, a user has to pay the service fee to the IPO as well as very high telephone costs charged by the unit of time. Consequently, families typically have only one line and conversations tend to be brief.
But the UK has also led Europe in the privatisation of utilities such as telecommunications. Privatisation has spread to most other European countries and there is a great deal of merger and partnership activity going on between US and European businesses and corporations of other nations. The competititon will force down prices and perhaps eventually lead to the adoption of the US model which relies on a relatively inexpensive monthly charge and no futher charges for local calls. Cable companies, which have saturated the UK with cable, ahead of every other country in Europe, are also offering telephone connections and connections to the internet.
In addition to these purely European issues, the talking heads also discussed the greater modem speeds and greater simplicity that is comign to computers, which will also stimulate demand.
Sorry didn't listen to all of it - it was familiar stuff to me.
Summary - very bullish. Compaq seen as a major, if not the major player in Europe - very strong brand recognition. Dell does not have a high public profile, yet.
Victor
|
