Michael,
<<But so far, not one reporter has taken out his calculator and said, unit
sales up 12%, prices down, what, 15%, 20%, 30%? I don't know the exact
number, but negative growth it certainly is>>
I'm tracking, but I still don't see enough data to support negative revenue growth in 1998. btw, we're looking for ASP's to drop about 11% to get a push on revenue, 1998 over 1997.
Here're a few thoughts:
1 - Equivalent boxes year-to-year are selling for a lot less. Obvious point, of course, but it's also obvious this doesn't tell us what the ASP is.
2 - We know the consumer market migrated strongly toward the $1K box this year, and also appears to have seen strong unit growth. Together these would be a strong factor pushing the ASP across the market down, but by how much?
3 - What about the business market? Has the ASP for business boxes held firm? The continued expansion of NT into the server and workstation market (putting big pressure on Unix boxes in both cases) would argue for this, but the availability of very strong Windows machines, cheap, at a time when there's no compelling app to upsell the boxes, argues against.
Does anyone have any better information on this? What does Hickey have to say? Earlie, how 'bout you?
Peter |
