Gary, It is possible that I am wrong, but I sure wouldn't use Compaq or Gateway as guides for any fundamental info of any sort. After all, Compaq thought last quarter was great, and it sucked big time. The thought the year was great, and they lost money. Everything is always great at Compaq. Which the stock reflects a little bit. Gateway has learned how to play games with their Underwear program, so that is a non-starter. IBM is sucking wind, as are Dell and Hewlett. The only honest one is the latter and they will tell it like it is this month.
But IDC and DQ do not support you for the 4th quarter. Since that was the period that the touts claimed was the great recovery, losing share 4Q is a pretty bad omen.
What down? Gary, pay attention. PC revenue growth was down last year and last quarter. Business revenues were down much more than consumer. This year will be worse. The last is a prediction from me. But you have to learn, when the facts are in, you can't pretend they don't exist. If you do, you will end up in investor relations at a pc co. <G>
Up is not the point at cos. with huge pe ratios. They have to be up in a major way to keep the lemmings heading for the cliff. And that won't happen this time. BTW, check out CPQ's "revenues." More than all of their great 4th quarter are accounted for in receivables gorging and questionable service accounting. The only reason they bought DEC was as a smokescreen for their own mismanagement. It worked, but the wise aren't buying into such a scammy stock.
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