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

To: OLDTRADER who wrote (163477)	12/28/2000 6:54:32 PM
From: D.J.Smyth	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 176388

downgrade. no upgrade. no downgrade. no upgrade. call the NASD and ask them what they want to do this month? upgrade or downgrade? how much volume are we short of our target? can we get the off shore accounts to pull their money in time for more downgrades? let's call Mark Hougan up and ask him to say something stupid. what remains amazing on a theoretical level is that 85% of the world's population remains without computing power and yet somehow we've reached saturation (at least a temporary saturation created by the lag between converting POTS to T1/broadband). they keep talking about the 15% without considering the other 85%. AND none of the analysts care to envision how increasing the broadband pipe will affect the PC in general. they're so enamored with xDSL's so-called adoption failure rate that they can't get past it to the next level! you won't always have old PCs sucking up to the newer bigger pipes now being installed. technology is actually lagging behind expectations. yet, these PC analysts are implying that people don't want new technology. it is more probable, as witnessed in Japan, that once the broadband networks are in place, the people flock to it with abandon; buying the products that fit the broadband. the broadband (the size of the pipe) determines the product. the product doesn't determine the broadband. once the bigger pipe is in place, the products begin to inherently adapt to the increased spectrum. the xDSL folks offered the Operators, and consequently the PC folks, the first step in the pipe. the Operators conducted market tests in areas where (a) they failed to build a true broadband network through and through, and (b) failed to appropriately service the hot spots. the demand was there...the significant increase in the use of internet/video and internet downloads were there...but, in Boston and Chicago where you had xDSL service breakdown 1X daily, you get upset...or, as it was in Chicago, they didn't allow for enough spectrum during the high useage times of the day. then you get analysts running around calling xDSL, and broadband in general, a potential failure, or a "latent" failure. and xDSL also offered a distinct look at the difference between how CPQ and Dell ran their businesses relative to new product introduction during the early xDSL days. CPQ installed an entire line of Presarios with xDSL equipment - they came pre-installed. it didn't matter if you lived in Montana where the nearest xDSL capable service was 1000 miles away, your computer had it. Dell offered xDSL modems only upon request. when asked if CPQ was trumping Dell on this issue, Micheal Dell stated, "Why should we pay to install xDSL in a computer when the people can't use it?" My, that was genius. Anyway. CPQ's new CEO, Capellas, put a stop to some of those goofy things. So, the upgrade/downgrade shakers have now contributed to an imperfect environment where technology lags demand. And, in the shakers' postulating, a company that receives a downgrade during the last week of the year is just the, oh my gosh, the worst. Even though the downgrade knocked but a few pennies off next year's earnings estimate, and gave no credible reasons for projected laptop and server declines, it did give the hypsters and doomsayers something else to bicker about.