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To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (11990)	6/7/2002 6:47:42 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 57684

<<And if you can't trust the Orcl PR machine - who can you trust! :-/>> LOL Have a good weekend. regards, -Scott

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (11990)	6/8/2002 2:14:10 PM
From: Bill Harmond	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 57684

I was braced like you, but I had an up day, too. Some nice reversals. Added a bit more Informatica. Check out the thread. Not exactly over-owned! Subject 41802

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (11990)	6/8/2002 8:58:54 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 57684

Tech Companies Trudge Through Extended Slowdown Sat Jun 8, 9:16 AM ET NEW YORK (Reuters) - There are many degrees of bad in business. And the technology industry seems to have touched on all of them. The blowup of the dot-coms, the bankruptcies, and the gut-wrenching stock declines have been spectacular. But the companies that have survived are running out of new ways to describe life in the slow lane as the hoped-for recovery continues to prove elusive. Tom Siebel, the head of Siebel Systems Inc. , has called the market "pretty darn weak." Flextronics Chief Executive Michael Marks could only say he is seeing signs "the end of the bottom is near." Qwest Communications International Inc. CEO Joseph Nacchio, noting this is the first time Bell regional phone companies saw declines in local access lines, told an audience of shareholders on Tuesday, "This has been a horrible time." Even Hewlett-Packard (news - web sites) Co. Chief Executive Carly Fiorina, who should be on top of the world after pulling off the biggest merger (news - web sites) in the history of the computer industry in an acquisition of Compaq (news - web sites) Computer Corp., sounded a sour note. "We are seeing a slower recovery in IT spending than any one of us would have liked," Fiorina said at a meeting with analysts in Boston on Tuesday. Over the past year, executives have talked about things "getting worse, but not as quickly as before," and customers "delaying purchasing decisions" as opposed to simply not buying. However you say it, the technology sector is still slogging through a downturn with no end in sight. Intel Chief Executive Craig Barrett said on Tuesday that technology sales will not recover until corporate profits recover -- and that is not likely to happen any time soon. "Until you see some degree of corporate profitability in the U.S., Western Europe and Japan, I think you're going to see limited IT investment," he told Reuters at Supercomm, a major telecom equipment conference in Atlanta. Barrett said he agreed with Fiorina's comment on the slow recovery. "I don't think there's much indication of corporate profitability and so Carly's comment, I think, is probably targeted along those lines," he added. "We'll be a lagging indicator to the economic recovery in the U.S. It will be a form of trickle-down economics." For now, many technology executives seem relieved to have seen their companies stabilize, even if they are scraping along the bottom with stocks at multiyear lows and diminished hopes for a quick rebound. Sanjay Kumar, chief executive of software giant Computer Associates International Inc. , told a group of analysts on Monday that he's seen no change. "It remains a tough marketplace," he said. "That's not to mean it has changed or is anything worse than it was two or three months ago." The technology slowdown has gone on for more than two years, beginning with the Internet crash and, in the end, even pulling down mighty International Business Machines Corp. . IBM on Tuesday said it would need to retrench in its technology segment, cutting 1,500 jobs even after it sold off the bulk of its hard disk drive business to Hitachi Ltd . Big Blue, which last year seemed impervious to the slowdown, reported a 30 percent drop in first-quarter profits and is expected to slash between about 8,000 and 9,500 jobs -- or up to 3 percent of its work force, this quarter. IBM said it would take a $2 billion to $2.5 billion charge, primarily in the second quarter, to cut jobs and write off assets in microelectronics and exit the hard disk drive business.