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To: Road Walker who wrote (151494)	12/6/2001 10:08:43 PM
From: Robert Salasidis	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 186894

I wouldn't doubt a lot of cash deals in these screwdriver shops that may go unoticed (for tax purposes). I am not sure how much of a problem this is in the US, but herein Canada, with a 15% GST/PST on top of the base price - there is a lot of incentive for individuals that may be unable to claim a PC purchase against business income, to deal in cash, and try to save 15%. I don't think this would add up to more than a small percentage of systems, but it does increase official estimates. CPU upgrades on an existing system are also not counted as official PC sales - as a customer is just buying a CPU. It would be easy for an early P4 user to have upgraded their computer. the same likely applies to some earlier Durons->Athlons, Celerons->PIIIs etc.

To: Road Walker who wrote (151494)	12/6/2001 10:08:54 PM
From: Bill Jackson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

John, Dell wiped out all the tiers of distribution with their direct model. What we see in the SD/SB sector now is their adaptation to Dell. In effect they have a distributed warehouse base that offsets the Dell method. Remember dell still has higher other costs than an SD/SB operation. Local service, stuff right now as you stand there, questions answered....all factors that hurt the majors, like Dell. Laptops are the last bastion of proprietary stuff. Dell, CPQ and others have made huge investments in case molds, and other unique parts that make their lappies cheap to make but expensive to us+big margins). We are now seeing an assault on that bastion. This has been driven in part by the price wars in screens that have made them available to all. It is also driven by the newer cad systems that can make a laptop mobo from a standard wire list in a few minutes to fit the funny shape of the case. There are also standard laptop case makers that are analogous to the standard cases of the SD/WB systems. You can now buy standard laptop cases, mobos, batteries, CD, floppy, DVD, screens etc to make your own laptop. This has not yet reached the point where you can buy a laptop case from JDR and a Mobo from BG Micro, like you can now. It is still more proprietary than the standard SD/WB cases/mobos/ps etc. This will have a huge impact on AMD sales since they seem to have a very capable laptop CPU right now, with(some say) 40+% of laptop sockets?? In addition these laptop cpus have a higher ASP, so that will help AMD as well. Bill