Dave,
>>I also am waiting to buy a new PC until next year (I already have my
Easter list started <g>). The only thing I might disagree with is that the
"average" user is waiting for some killer app. If you have an old
low-speed Pentium or 486, you'd probably think a PIII is fast, and most
customers don't know about Rambus. Dell doesn't even sell a PII
anymore (not sure about the other vendors), so it's not as if you have
much of a choice. And if you have one of the old machines, you might
upgrade now for Y2K security.<<
I agree with you on this point, and will also add that you'll get your "back to school" push. I guess what I'm saying is that the high end corporate servers are on hold and that's were the profits are. PC prices can only continue to fall, so I see DELL in a particular bind on this score. They're making inroads in the consumer market, but I'm tellin' ya, they need to drop prices further to expand that particular market. In this one respect, I tend to agree with Fleckenstein, white boxes are will be like TV's, everybody has one or two or three, but until we start seeing digital, there's no pricing power. Think killer app. Full motion video, teleconferencing, streaming, etc. All bandwidth hogs. "gee whiz" factor has to be high to stimulate consumer sales. Fortunately for RMBS, the need for speed is transcendental, far broader than "just" computing.
bp |
