To All, Ramblings: 1. Only one pc ad in the paper midweek, an HWP Celeron from Office Depot. No mention that PIII exists, but with only one ad, that may not be indicative of anything.
2. Another spate of golly gee announcements from Dell. This usually touty co. has grown remarkably taciturn about its main business, but chatty about initiatives that mean next to nothing. They seem to be taking a page from Gateway's book. It is too early in Dell's fiscal quarter to make any genralizations, but if I were a bull, I'd be hoping for a return to the old hype.
3. Guessing sales this quarter is tough and I was probably too hard on IDC last night. They have to factor in the degree of leftover inventory in the channel vs. last year's 1Q, which may have been the largest stuff in history. The disappearance of the corporate market and falling ASPs does not make the task easiers. Some points for thought. a. Historically, 1Q from 4Q in the industry has been fairly flat, with a minor downward bias, sequentially. Last year was an exception and this year will certainly be an exception. In fact, the exception may become the rule, as the flat 1Qs came when the PC market was growing. ASPs are certainly down dramatically from this time last year, but perhaps not as much, in % terms, as they were 4Q. My SWAG is down about 15% for this quarter, year over year. That would make revenues slightly negative year to year if IDC is close on the unit sales growth. I think they are high there, and probably overstating due to the direct sellers. January was a monster for consumer sales, but that has definitely gone away. The boost from PIII intro seems to be, at best, muted. I can't find any corporations who are buying boxes at a higher rate than they did last year. Obviously, my contacts are not that extensive, so I may be missing a box buying sugar daddy of massive proportion. Inventory in the channel has just been restuffed by the PIII boxes, so there is no relief on that front. All in all, an odd quarter.
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