Several weeks ago I read an article quoting one of the market research firms as saying that PC sales would slow dramatically in the second half of calendar 1999 as companies halted new purchases as the year 2000 approached. I don't recall where I read this, but believe it was one of the market research firms such as the Gartner Group which was being quoted. It seems very logical to me, that companies would cease changes to their information systems in time to be certain that everything had stabilized before the calendar rolled over to the year 2000. Has anyone else read anything about this and, if so, can you point to us to the source of this information?
The article referred to a dramatic drop in PC sales in the second half of 1999. However, if this forecast is correct, the implications of this for investment in computer hardware or software companies during the upcoming year are enormous. It implies to me, that some of the high-flying stocks such as Dell Computer,' Cisco Systems, EMC, and probably Microsoft as well would be subject to sharp reductions in sales as all significant changes are put on hold until the new millennium. Of the disk drive companies, it seems that Seagate would be most impacted as a result of their high-end drive sales for servers and disk arrays. It is especially significant that year 2000 concerns are worldwide matter as opposed to impacting only certain international markets.
Again, I would be curious whether anyone has read anything else on the subject. This forecast slowdown seems intuitively logical, and I am surprised that I have not seem more discussion of this potential issue. I would be curious as to what thoughts and others on this thread might have regarding the pros and cons of this argument.
Later, Z
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