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Technology Stocks : EMC How high can it go? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Koligman who wrote (14601)	10/7/2002 5:34:42 AM
From: JDN	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 17183

John and all: You know I am reading this pessimistic stuff all over the internet now. For those of you a little OLDER (I am 59) I will tell you about my early years in investing. Bought a stock for 30 a share in late 60's, my first real investment and it was a substantial part of my assets (I didnt even own a home). I continued to add through the early 70's and about late 72 the market took a DUMP and I watched it drop to a 1 or less. I was WIPED OUT but I didnt sell, I just let it sit. Stock paid only stock dividends. Well, come the early 90's I HAD to sell as became a conflict of interest situation as my company got some audit work from them. I sold it for MORE then $300 a share. I think rather then worrying so much about the market in general one should merely worry about the stock they own and decide if its a survivor and has a good lock on the future with good management. If it meets that criteria then its ONLY A MATTER OF TIMING. jdn

To: John Koligman who wrote (14601)	10/8/2002 2:00:39 AM
From: Gus	Respond to of 17183

Key question in the long term then becomes - does Dell win and inherit another commodity market where the consumer is the ultimate winner due to price, and will it become like the PC market, where Dell has to run harder and harder, selling more and more cartridges at lower and lower prices??? That's the nature of the beast, John. Cheaper, better, faster....until you run out of humans.<g> If HPQ's printer division were a stand-alone company, I think they would be capable of taking Dell apart no matter who Dell partners with or what model Dell uses to get into the printer business. I even think that Dell wouldn't have entered this market if HPQ's printer division were an independent company, fully capable of thrusting and parrying every possible Dell move including multi-use cartridges. However, as HPQ's sacred cash cow being used to subsidize its money-losing divisions, they are quite vulnerable. It's really too bad because most of HPQ's best operators are in this division and they're being led to the abattoir. This division actually has a very good idea of how they intend to leverage their dominant positions in the inkjet (75% of industry unit shipments) and laser (25%) markets so that while the low-end and midrange consumer/corporate markets will commoditize over time, most of the profits will come from highly profitable commercial printing services. It's just too bad that Dell wins by effectively just showing up because forcing HPQ into a series of price wars will systematically degrade HPQ's ability to subsidize its PC and server businesses, and accelerate Dell's growing ability to sell what are essentially different types of network nodes -- compute, storage, communication, and print.

To: John Koligman who wrote (14601)	10/8/2002 2:33:50 AM
From: Gus	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 17183

Lexmark would be stupid to cut their own throat by giving the crown jewels to Dell, so a buyout would probably have to be done, but I wonder if there is some way Dell is figuring on getting around this?? I can't see it without a purchase though, simply because the printer guys aren't going to 'give up the cartridge'... Here's a quick and dirty rundown of the patent scene in the printing industry: 1) The old HP paid Pitney Bowes something like $400M in 2000 or 2001 to settle a patent infringement lawsuit over laser printers. HP has 77% of the monochrome laser printer market so everybody else that Pitney Bowes is suing will probably pay too. Canon is a question mark because it supplies HP with the laser engines for its laser printers, which were presumably part of the settlement. 2) Xerox and the old HP sued each other 6x in the late 90s over inkjet printing patents before settling in 2000 or 2001. I think HP got the upper hand in that confidential settlement because Xerox has major problems entering the low-end and mid-range inkjet market while HP appears not to have any problems entering the high-end market where Xerox plays. Lexmark actually appears to be the only other player with a defensible patent portfolio that allows it to venture from the low-end inkjet market to the high-end laser market. That gives it leverage in any reseller deal including the one with Dell. That's why you and I agree that Dell will eventually have to take out Lexmark to capture the margins of those "blades."