El: I haven't had 5 beers (urp!), but some of it makes sense. <ggg>
How do you know that Faber is doing the interview??? If that's the case, it should be pretty interesting. Just this morning Kernen and Faber were going back and forth about what a great imitation Faber does of EP. I have no doubt that EP has seen him do it, too. Faber won't let EP skate, but I really wish the interview was going to be with Haines on SQUAWK - Cramer's on to boot. I can picture Cramer saying to EP, "I don't believe you guys did this to me 2 years in a row!" Well, you can bet, they'll be talking about it anyway.
I don't know what time Schmidt is going to be on, but I doubt it's "with" EP. Schmidt is a verrry smart guy - I like him.
Re Intel - I caught Bryant's interview on Business Center. When asked about Q2 being "slightly down, blah, blah," he basically reiterated what I said about that being the case for the past 3 years. When asked about CPQ (being 13% of INTC revs), he said that PC growth in Q1 was consistent with what INTC expected it would be and that Q2 looks to be consistent with expectations as well. He seemed very pleased with INTC's margins, too. I liked his comments on the PIII - "PIII is the fastest ramping product we've ever had."
As far as how the INTC story relates to CPQ, I think it's much better for CPQ that INTC had a good quarter, than not, because that would mean that the "problem" is more likely CPQ specific. If that's the case, CPQ can be "fixed." If INTC's quarter was bad, perception would be that the demand for PCs in general is slowing and that's something that CPQ can't "fix." I don't know what's going on with EP, but I sure hope he's wrong about industry-wide problems.
Does any of that make sense?? If not, I'll crack open a bottle of wine and try again later.
K |
