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Technology Stocks : Rambus (RMBS) - Eagle or Penguin -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Barry Grossman who wrote (42067)	5/11/2000 9:37:00 PM
From: jim kelley	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 93625

Nice try.... DELL shipped no 820 with SDRAM. They said so during their conference call. They said they were "squeeky clean".

To: Barry Grossman who wrote (42067)	5/11/2000 9:43:00 PM
From: Don Green	Respond to of 93625

Dell's 1st-Quarter Revenues, Profits Rise By Nicole Volpe NEW YORK (Reuters) - Dell Computer Corp. (NasdaqNM:DELL - news) on Thursday reported a 31 percent increase in revenues and higher first-quarter earnings that topped estimates, as the world's No. 2 personal computer maker delivered a steady performance after a rocky ride in the two previous quarters. Dell said net income rose to $525 million, or 19 cents per share, from $434 million, or 16 cents, a year ago. Analysts had expected earnings per share of 16 cents, according to estimates compiled by research firm First Call/Thomson Financial. Revenues rose to $7.28 billion from $5.54 billion in the year-earlier quarter. Round Rock, Texas-based Dell reported its results after the market close. The stock rose nearly 3 points in after-hours trade to 47 1/2, according to Instinet, from its Nasdaq close of 44 11/16. In a conference call after the company's statement, Dell executives breezed through a series of numbers that pointed to smooth sailing ahead -- including stronger profit margins and a signs of improvement in Europe, a region that has put a drag on revenue growth for a year. ``All of the arrows are pointing in the right direction here,'' said Banc of America Montgomery analyst Kurt King. In the third and fourth quarters of last year, Dell had to warn investors prior to its earnings reports that the results would fall short of the current Wall Street expectations. In making those warnings, the company cited components shortages and other issues, and said investors should no longer expect revenues to grow by 40 to 50 percent -- the level that Wall Street had become accustomed to seeing. Instead, Dell lowered the bar for revenue growth to the low 30s percentage range -- a level it comfortably cleared in the first-quarter report on Thursday. Dell Vice Chairman Kevin Rollins in a telephone interview repeated the company's expectations for revenues to continue growing at a rate in the low 30s percentage range, which is still double the industry average. ``Our goal is to have very good and positive multiple of the industry rate,'' he said. ``At our size now we do not want to overheat our whole business process here,'' he said, referring to Dell's contention it is too large of a company now to maintain historical growth rates. ``What we have here is achievable optimism,'' said J.P. Morgan analyst Daniel Kunstler. Gross margins, or profit expressed as a percentage of revenue, climbed to 20.5 percent from 19.2 percent in the fourth quarter as the company benefited from lower prices for the memory chips built into PCs. Chief Financial Officer James Schneider said he expected operating margins to reach about 10 percent by the fourth quarter and about 9 percent for the year as a whole. Dell reported an operating profit margin of 8.6 percent in the first quarter. ``I was surprised he said the margins could break 10 percent by the end of the year,'' said Robertson Stephens analyst Dan Niles, who said he planned to raise his forecasts on Dell on the basis of its first-quarter report. Dell executives said the company was making progress in expanding into the higher growth business of providing powerful computers that run Web sites and electronic commerce tasks, shifting away from its reliance on desktop computers. Sales of the company's workstations and notebook PCs, as well as storage products and computers known as servers that run Web sites and electronic commerce tasks, rose to 48 percent of total system sales, Dell said. Dell said sales were strong in North America and Asia, but its European business was still relatively sluggish, growing only 17 percent. Rollins said Europe could match or perhaps even exceed Dell's overall sales growth goal of between 30 and 33 percent within a year. ``We see it performing by the end of the year ... at or above the corporate average,'' he said. ``We believe it could be a net adder.'' Such a turnaround in Europe would give an enormous boost to the company's prospects overall, analysts said. ``That is so positive for the overall story,'' said King. ''Europe has been a drag on growth rate in the last four quarters. If Dell fixes Europe, there's no telling what they can do.''