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Technology Stocks : Compaq -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: joel3 who wrote (62926)	6/12/1999 1:00:00 AM
From: Chris	Respond to of 97611

Thank you Joel for enlightening us to the real possibilities of CPQ. I think some of the more emotional people on this thread have forgotten that CPQ has a more far-reaching vision than some of the other "boxmakers." Example. Click on the link to CPQ & then click on the link to Dell from the MSFT article. Dell's link talks about nothing but MSFT software, CPQ's talks about their Himalayan servers. Chris

To: joel3 who wrote (62926)	6/13/1999 4:18:00 PM
From: Salah Mohamed	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 97611

Hi Joel .... About eBay Outage Isn't this interesting?. ebay had a major outage due to problems with their SUNW system and MSFT immediately jumps on the opportunity and states the solution is to use CPQ Himalaya or NT, of course with emphasis on NT. I don't understand this at all, why doesn't CPQ issue a PR or something to vouch for their own systems?. I thought they want to be in the forefront of the internet infrastructure, but no action whatsoever to take advantage of this opportunity. Is this the fast management response Rosen is talking about?. I guess our marketing and PR people were getting ready for the weekend and didn't have time to respond to this important event <GGGG>. ****************************** Hi Eric ... About CPQ Service Business >>>Do you have any opinion as to how CPQ is transforming their DEC and Tandem merger in general and if they appear to be on track in building their service business like IBM?<<< According to what the company said and other published info, the service business is doing well. Here is what we know: 1. In Q1 revenues from services were 1.6B with gross margins of 32% versus 26% for IBM service business. 2. EP stated early this year that only accounting and payroll of DEC are the remaining items. Full integration should be complete by the end of Q2. 3. Last month, a CPQ executive from overseas said they expect that their service revenues to grow to 15B by the year 2002. This is 25%-30% annual growth. 4. Early this year, there were several articles about CPQ, DEC, and Tandem were bidding on the same service job separately. However, in a recent article about a service job CPQ won, the client said he got a unified bid in a professional manner. Hopefully, these integration woes are behind them. Clearly, the above four items paint a rosy picture. However, if this is the case, why the head of the service organization (Rando) who has very good reputation is resigning?. I don't have an answer to this question. Hopefully, rudedog gives us more insights about the service business. **************************** Hi Hio ... About VarBusiness Surveys >>>Looks like Compaq will take a hit for sales last month in the higher margin server market<<< From the May surveys of SMB var's, it seems to me that most of the small vars are pushing their own white boxes instead of favoring any particular brand name. This picture is not really that bad for CPQ as it was in Q1. In Q1, CPQ was the only indirect supplier to have some direct sales which caused the var's to retaliate by favoring IBM and HWP products over CPQ products. However, this situation has changed now with both IBM and HWP are getting involved in direct sales. Further, in Q1, some internet shops were selling CPQ products for less price than the price the var's paid for these products. Of course, this caused the var's to punish CPQ some more. Also, this situation has changed now by halting shipment to internet shops till a new pricing policy was established in May. Overall, these surveys don't look to be bad for CPQ in Q2. The survey numbers for CPQ from Feb. through May are: 11%, 18%, 31%, and 21%, respectively. Clearly, the numbers for the first 2 months of Q2 are much better than the last 2 month of Q1. The latest hit in May is mainly due to reducing the number of distributors from 40 to 4. Hopefully, this shortfall is made up by having more direct sales. If the direct sales are increasing, it bodes well for them because it jives with their objective of increasing their direct sales gradually to reach around 30%. ****************************** Regards Salah