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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (75635)	10/15/1999 3:17:00 PM
From: Cory Gault	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1572777

Ted: I think this is an ominous sign for IBM's future in the retail end of the PC business. I am not convinced that it hurts AMD or INTC however. IBM has not been successful in this arena at all. It is a bigtime money loser...and as Gerstner has transformed IBM into an e-services company, he has had no appetite for non profitable divisions. CG

To: tejek who wrote (75635)	10/15/1999 11:20:00 PM
From: Bill Jackson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1572777

ted, This disintermediation is a fact of life. It is coming quickly. It is no coincidence that the people who lagged in embracing it are the roadkilll on TIH. We have seen IBM, Compaq and HP cling to the old model while Dell, then Gateway embraced it. I would expect the Oriental companies to be the least flexible and cling to the model for the longest and take the deepest losses before doing it or dying it. IBM, HP and Compaq?, how quickly will they implement? it and how successfully? Those are the big questions. If HP goes direct with printers it can expect the others to drag their asses and let them dominate the business direct as they now do indirect. Since they are essentially selling ink they can afford to drop printer costs a lot further in direct mode to compete with the Orientals who will cling to the old way. Will IBM catch up with Dell? Possibly, since Dell makes no components and IBM can make everyone, especially memory, and memory may well be Dells Achilles heel. But remember IBM is big, old iron, inflexible and might find it cannot think outside the box. Gateway?, smaller that Dell, more tender heels, very vulnerable. Bill