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Technology Stocks : Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: George Dvorsky who wrote (3231)	2/14/2001 9:39:00 AM
From: Tom M	Respond to of 3276

George/all re:"Tom's Gold": < I don't see a case for it for a while unless there is an international crisis> I'd like to give some background to my opinion (sure as hell don't mean I'm right). Well having watched gold react or not react to various events over the last few years, I take the contrarian view. I think the worst time to buy gold is the event of in international crisis as the powers that be have shown they'll do all they can to suppress (ie interfere with the "free" market) the price of gold particularly at those times of crisis and inflation. There's a big lawsuit currently underway from GATA (Gold Anti Trust Action committee) investigating just that. Not sure about what's been happening in you other folks areas, but I've seen my new car/truck prices double as well as much real estate prices and rents. During the same period I've seldom had a chance to get 5% interest rates on savings. They've grossly eroded the buying power of our savings and I call that inflation. Greenspan says there's no inflation, "just look at gold". So based on what I've seen vs what I've been told, if gold now goes down during the Asian and Russian crisis and times of inflation, they should let it go back to its equilibrium value now that that's passed. Not that gold can't go any lower or course, but the current selling price is less than what many can pull it out of the ground for. Lastly note that gold and the gold stocks I mentioned suddenly started taking a multi-year dive about the time of Clinton's re-election in '96: siliconinvestor.com the birth of the gold-carry trade. There's currently a short position in gold equal to about 4 years production that in a free market would have to be paid back. This is by no means a sure thing (or a free market IMO), but I'm looking at the risk vs reward in those charts if gold were at least allowed to sell above its costs of production. IMO, that will be allowed when people aren't trying to use it to run to safety in a crisis as that will hurt the dollar and it's the power's that be's job to protect the dollar. Just want you to know where I'm coming from. I'm not a gold bug and didn't ride them down, but like DEC at $25, I'm seeing possible undervaluation. Beware, gold is the political metal, nothing else seems to matter to it. regards, Tom

To: George Dvorsky who wrote (3231)	6/26/2001 1:01:52 PM
From: Tom M	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3276

"Compaq Phasing Out Its Alpha Line, Deepening Cuts": dailynews.yahoo.com By Eric Auchard NEW YORK (Reuters) - Compaq Computer Corp. (NYSE:CPQ - news) said it plans to phase out its own line of computer chips in favor of microprocessors made by No. 1 chip maker Intel Corp. (NasdaqNM:INTC - news), as well as deepen cost cuts, in moves to speed its shift from a hardware company to a business services company. Compaq, which lost its lead in the personal computer market to Dell Computer Corp. (NasdaqNM:DELL - news) this year, said on Monday it agreed to use Intel's Itanium chips in its high-powered computers, also known as servers, in a transition to be completed by 2004. Compaq will transfer to Intel hundreds of employees and other resources related to its own chip technology, known as Alpha. In the mid-1990s, Alpha was considered a pioneering microprocessor, developed by Compaq's Digital Equipment Corp unit, but its challenge to Intel was largely ineffective. ``This is meant to be one microprocessor architecture under our entire server line,'' Capellas said at a press conference. By adopting a chip that other companies will use also, Compaq is betting that it can make and support systems that best use the chip's power rather than microchips. ``It puts more of a burden on Compaq toward being a complete systems company and building up a lot of their services and other things to help differentiate them,'' said J.P. Morgan Chase analyst Walter Winnitzki. Also, in a memo to staff dated June 12, Compaq Chairman Michael Capellas said the company would aim to cut $200 million in costs every quarter starting in the first quarter, totaling $800 million for the year. In its earnings report for the first-quarter, ended March 31, Compaq said it planned to reduce structural costs $500 million to $600 million annually. ``Reducing structural costs is absolutely necessary in order for us to price competitively and improve profitability,'' the memo said. The memo spelled out an approach that includes a greater focus on services and software, not unlike International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM - news) and Hewlett-Packard Co.(NYSE:HWP - news). IBM has said it has sidestepped the brunt of the technology slowdown in part because of the strength of its large services business and its exit from consumer retail sales of personal computers over a year ago. HP has said it is gunning for IBM's services market and supports Intel's Itanium in the belief that it can get a better return for investments into systems and their management rather than for a chip that runs the systems. ``We're actually very positive about Compaq's announcement,'' said Mark Hudson, worldwide marketing manager for business systems at Hewlett-Packard. ``It makes the place of setting yourself apart higher up in the food chain... it means, the services, it means the support.'' In the memo, Compaq indicated it has allocated $500 million to acquire services companies to expand that part of its business. ``In the United States, we will focus on acquiring a services company with core strengths in our targeted vertical markets,'' Capellas said in the note. ``In countries where we have strong high-end share but no critical mass in services, we will look for opportunities to acquire enterprise services companies.''