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Technology Stocks : Compaq -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jerome who wrote (93996)	12/7/2001 10:06:48 AM
From: Elwood P. Dowd	Respond to of 97611

Computer sales up after Thanksgiving by: skeptically 12/07/01 09:18 am Msg: 263041 of 263043 newsalert.com search-&StoryTitle=compaq December 06, 2001 19:18 Computer sales, up after Thanksgiving, raise hopes for things to come By Crayton Harrison DALLAS_Sales of personal computers grew at a stronger than expected rate during the first week of the holiday shopping season, but analysts said the coming weeks look only slightly brighter after a bleak year for PC makers. During the week of Nov. 18, desktop PC sales rose 119 percent from the week before, according to research from NPD Intelect. Last year, they grew 74 percent in the same span. Laptop sales were also healthy, growing 53 percent from the week before, compared to 27 percent last year. Those are encouraging figures for companies that have not been able to convince many consumers to replace their older PCs this year, but there's a long way to go, said George Elling, research analyst for Deutsche Bank in New York. "Thanksgiving weekend traditionally represents only about 10 percent of the Christmas season sales," Elling said. "Demand seemed to be reasonably good, but it's still going to be down, overall, from a year ago." Texas' two computer giants, Houston-based Compaq Computer Corp. and Austin's Dell Computer Corp., both reported initially strong holiday sales for consumer PCs. That doesn't mean their situations are improving, Elling said, though Dell continues to grab market share from its competitors. "Dell continues to say it's satisfied with the progress it's seeing, but it hasn't pulled out the green flag saying business is back, onward and upward," Elling said. Compaq, Dell and other computer companies have not altered their expectations for fourth-quarter revenue, which most had expected to be down from last year. But Intel Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc., two of the largest semiconductor makers, raised their fourth-quarter estimates Thursday, saying they were seeing strong demand for their flagship chips. If PC makers follow suit and revise their earnings expectations, it will only be because they set them too low to begin with, said Vadim Zlotnikov, senior technology analyst for Sanford C. Bernstein in New York. "As we get companies reporting, like Intel and AMD, we'll find that they're exceeding their initial guidance, which was unreasonably low," Zlotnikov said. "That holds true for next year as well. These companies get to beat the expectations they basically set for themselves. It's a bit of circular reasoning." ___ (c) 2001, The Dallas Morning News.

To: Jerome who wrote (93996)	12/9/2001 6:18:55 AM
From: phileasfogg	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 97611

Jerome, You realize of course that HWP and CPQ are not exchange "market" information until the merger is agreed upon by their respective shareholders. The fact that Carly and Michael have met and agreed to the merger does not equate to the two companies combining to go to market as one. To date, they remain co-opetitors, i.e. they compete fiercely with one another across their client-server-storage-services product ranges while they build together their electronic supply chains (the origin of the deal between Carly and Michael). FYI, when CPQ and DEC announced their merger intention in January 1998, CPQ and DEC's field organizations still had to wait until June1998 ( for the shareholders to support the deal) to officially engage with one another and start consolidating their respective operations. In conclusion, if the HewPaq merger is being carried out along the same agenda as the ComDEC merger, as we speak, the only organizations which are working on the operational consolidation must be the investment banks and the likes of McKinzey and BCG. Over to You The Fogg