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Technology Stocks : Dell Technologies Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: D. Swiss who wrote (148435)	12/3/1999 11:27:00 AM
From: BBG	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 176387

MSD SPEAKS... Tech Thoughts, Straight From Dell By Adam Lashinsky Silicon Valley Columnist 12/3/99 7:00 AM ET SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- One of the residual effects of being a billionaire is that people want to know your thoughts on absolutely everything. Michael Dell understands this. And so each year at the Credit Suisse First Boston technology conference here, the founder and CEO of Dell (DELL:Nasdaq) engages in a witty thumbs-up/thumbs-down repartee with the audience. He used to pass judgment on companies -- a bold move for a CEO whose company counts just about any other company as a potential customer. But because his pronouncements had too much of an impact on individual stocks, he confined himself this year to technologies. SiliconStreet: Join the discussion on TSC message boards. Will any of this help you decide if Dell, the company, is a good buy at 44 15/16? No, of course not. But Dell, the person, has lines into nearly every other technology leader in the world. Take his observations to heart, and factor them into your own investment strategy. Windows CE: thumbs down. "CE is struggling and losing momentum relative to Palm," says Dell, who reports that Palm Computing's Palm V is the best-selling item at his company's Gigabuys.com retail consumer-electronics site. Windows CE is the operating system for handheld devices that Microsoft (MSFT:Nasdaq) has been pushing enthusiastically, but without great results. Dell further reports that information-technology managers aren't in love with CE because they expect devices using it to behave and be supported like Windows -- that is, the devices won't behave and won't be supported. MP3 devices: half a thumb up. Dell calls the devices that play music from the Internet a "hot consumer toy" and notes that his company is heavily promoting the idea, which has become all the rage on college campuses. But he notes that his company in particular supports the notion that "you can use your PC to replace your stereo." Your PC is not your MP3 player, thank you very much. BlueTooth: half a thumb up. "BlueTooth, we think is going to be big," says Dell, of the very local area network wireless technology being advocated by Motorola (MOT:NYSE), Ericsson (ERICY:Nasdaq ADR) and others. "But it will take awhile," he says, before it takes off. 'Nuff said. Linux: Three-quarters of a thumb up. Dell reports that Linux is doing well, but in very small numbers. His company owns a chunk of Red Hat (RHAT:Nasdaq), so it certainly has benefited from the craze of the new, free operating system. He notes that the biggest users of Linux have been higher education, small- and medium-sized businesses and dot-com companies. He estimates that two-thirds of Linux proponents are attracted by the ability to get software without paying Microsoft. The other third are broken down roughly between Microsoft haters and techies replacing Unix systems. Dell also gets in one dig on the Linux craze, claiming that his company sells more machines using Linux than other supposedly Linux-centric manufacturers. Could that be a dig at VA Linux Systems, the First Boston client that's about to do an IPO? Naw! A final note, Michael Dell has sold scads of computers, but his prognostication record is spotty. On the upside, last year he had harsh words for competitor Micron Electronics (MUEI:Nasdaq), giving the computer maker a thumbs down with the admonition of "too late, too small to matter." Micron's stock today, at 11 11/16, is about half the value it was a year ago when Dell dissed the company. On the flip side, Dell gave an enthusiastic thumbs up last year to Rambus (RMBS:Nasdaq), the memory-chip technology supplier that's partly responsible for his company's supply constraint today.

To: D. Swiss who wrote (148435)	12/3/1999 11:27:00 AM
From: Murrey Walker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 176387

Drew...I think this a.m.'s performance kind of gives some credibility to what edamo has been saying for quite a while. Very disappointing! JMO

To: D. Swiss who wrote (148435)	12/3/1999 12:03:00 PM
From: John Hauser	Respond to of 176387

Hey D - Market explodes, Dell up .31 paltry cents. Oh, I miss the good old days of Dell. But, to me, it looks like that is now history. Dell's like INTC now. Those shares I traded for AOL MSFT LU are looking like an excellent investment. OT - MCOM! In @$10.00 and loving it. Looking for $200! Ah, gotta love that irrational exhuberrence when it's on your side. GOOOO D&%$E#@(L$#L!! (sputter sputter........cough...gag) JH p.s. that dude pushing SUNW over Dell last summer is looking like a friggin genius now even though he was pretty much ridiculed here.