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Technology Stocks : Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Night Writer who wrote (1549)	7/30/2002 2:43:18 PM
From: The Duke of URL©	Respond to of 4345

The sun never sets on the Paqish Empire: HP takes aim at Sun clustering Claims Sun fails to deliver technologies By Mike Magee: Tuesday 30 July 2002, 17:08 A DOCUMENT SEEN the INQUIRER shows that HP is taking aim at Sun and accusing it of not delivering on promises it made about clusters. The document, called a "competitive briefing", is aimed at partners and obviously is intended to show HP in a good light and put Sun in the shade. The document claims HP has competitive intelligence that Sun had promised its customers they would have a 32-64 CPU shared memory cluster machine. This, said HP, would be based on a high speed interconnect giving the look and feel of a single Solaris copy across multiple nodes, using multiple 12 way Sun Fire servers. HP claims Sun had told its customers they would have such machines installed by now, but has been unable to deliver. Instead it has substituted Sun Fire 1500s to satisfy the contracts, HP alleges. And HP also claims that Sun said it was talking about a shared memory cluster which it also couldn't deliver. The document asks partners to find out as much about what it dubs as a "Sun fiasco" as possible. Obviously, for competitive purposes only. µ

To: Night Writer who wrote (1549)	7/31/2002 10:30:17 AM
From: Elwood P. Dowd	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4345

Dell eyeing printers, handhelds computers By Caroline Humer NEW YORK, July 31 (Reuters) - Dell Computer Corp. (Nasdaq:DELL - News) is eyeing the computer printer and handheld markets as the next arenas where it can use its low-cost sales model, cut prices, and grab market share, just as it did with personal computers. While Dell Chief Operating Officer Kevin Rollins has said he's encouraged about the printer and handheld markets, investors and analysts say neither is as easy to conquer as PCs and large computers for corporations. Michael Dell, founder of the Round Rock, Texas company, made his name as the bargain provider of personal computers by wringing costs out of supply and distribution. Along the way, he drove the PC business of competitors like Compaq Computer, Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE:HPQ - News), and Gateway Inc. (NYSE:GTW - News) into the red. "Michael's strategy for years has been to find a sector that has proprietary standards and where prices are high and he can come in and commoditize it, drive pricing down, and take share," said Mark Herskovitz, a portfolio manager for the Dreyfus Premier Technology Growth Fund. That can be done with printers and with their ink cartridges, Herskovitz said. "It's not going to be a huge boost to revenue but it's very consistent with his strategy. The PDA is less certain ... If he's going to do that, in my opinion it's more of a change from his strategy in the past. He's always been very negative on these PDAs," he said. Dell consistently has said that it would consider both markets and recently, COO Rollins said he sees Dell taking on printer makers as soon as the end of this year. Rollins has also indicated that the company may be drawing closer to handhelds. During a conference call hosted by Bear Stearns for investors on July 9, Rollins said handhelds were looking more inviting. "We've been pretty consistent in saying that until that market got large enough and profitable enough, it just wasn't interesting enough for us to invest in. I think we're getting close now," Rollins said. "I think you will see us get in." Recent newspaper and analyst reports say that move could come as soon as this year, with the company gearing up to sell its own brand of personal digital assistants, or PDAs, by the holidays. A Dell spokesman declined to comment, saying he didn't want to add to market speculation. Taipei's Chinese-language Economic Daily News reported earlier this week that Taiwan's Wistron -- a former Acer Inc. unit -- won a contract to make 1.5 million Microsoft-based Pocket PCs for Dell. Wistron declined to comment. One of the other companies that had reportedly bid for the business, Compal, denied reports last week that it won. Taiwan's Mitac International (Taiwan:2315.TW - News) and High Tech Computer Corp. also bid for the business in the middle of June, according to analysts and Taiwanese media reports. One hedge fund analyst speaking on the condition of anonymity said that Dell has been shopping around trying to get a $299 retail price so that it can undercut handheld sales by Compaq and Toshiba, which both make Windows-based system for $100 to $200 more. High-Tech Computer wasn't interested, he said. MONTHS OF SPECULATION Speculation that Dell would sell its own printers has circulated for months but talk that a move is imminent increased last week when printer giant HP pulled the plug on its distribution deal with Dell. HP said it ended the contract because of Dell's intention to get into the printer business. But concerns that Dell is in a position to punish HP's printer business the way it did its once-vibrant, but now money-losing personal computer division are unfounded, one Wall Street analyst said recently. Sanford Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi said that Dell's entry into printers won't affect HP or Lexmark International Inc. (NYSE:LXK - News) for at least a year. HP has nearly 30 million laser printers in customers' hands while Dell sells about 500,000 per year, he said in a note. Dell should stay focused on selling to companies, said analyst Marty Shagrin of Victory Capital, a Dell shareholder. "I think the upside to Dell needs to come in the enterprise business. That's where it makes the most sense," Shagrin said. Printers would fall into this category -- not handhelds, Shagrin said, but he's not certain Dell is serious about it. "I'm not sure if it's just to force HP to reinvest the cash that they generate from their printers back into the printer business and not support the losing PC business," he said. (Additional reporting by Baker Li in Taipei)