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Technology Stocks : Applied Materials No-Politics Thread (AMAT) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Road Walker who wrote (4577)	12/21/2002 3:07:46 PM
From: Sarmad Y. Hermiz	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 25522

>> since there was an huge and artificial PC upgrade cycle in 1999-2000, that there will be an echo upgrade cycle John, I think the upgrade never stopped occurring. Yes, there was a bulge in 1999-2000, and some of that was due to Y2K concerns. But a large amount was due to the dot.com scam. Of course the dot.com PC's were auctioned off cheap in 2001, which robbed the usual demand. And also, the excess PC's due to dot.com usage will not be upgraded. I mean all those servers, and routers in the Exodus buildings. When Exodus and other such providers went bankrupt, most of their customers also were bankrupt, and did not need to find another alternative. However, where I think the forecasts are missing is the demand from "white box" makers. Especially in India and China. These are non-brand PC's. They will not show up in the revenue of Dell or HP. But they do use a processor and a disk, a manin board, and memory. This demand is currently estimated by Western Digital's CEO to be approx 44% of PC's. And it is growing much faster than the name brands. Otherwise how to explain the increased rev update from Intel AND AMD. The increased guidance from Maxtor AND Western Digital. So it is not just a shift in market share. Now one might cite Micron as the contr-indicator. But that is due to the suicidal competition in memory that will not be cured by any demand increase. And the other component, Main Boards, is not made by any American companies, so you never hear about that. But those unit counts are up also. Our earliest actual earnings peek will come from the newly public Seagate on Jan 9. I think they will report earnings and unit sales far exceeding anyone's published forecast. Sarmad

To: Road Walker who wrote (4577)	12/22/2002 3:40:34 PM
From: Lizzie Tudor	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25522

My VERY humble opinion is that we will see a significant PC upgrade cycle, beginning sometime in 2003. I am much less optimistic about the following upgrade cycle, I think the industry may be finally approaching a functional climax. Many folks have said that before... after this cycle it could be true. I posted earlier (to Paul V) that we have a few drivers for enterprise software upgrades finally with the asian factory buildout. Any enterprise software implementations are going to require new PCs, the new model is "no footprint" which is resource heavy. Today stockman_scott posted a Chicago-based article that mirrors this thinking, hey maybe I'll be right about something for a change (nah... can't be :-/) Lizzie BorgWarner Inc., the biggest maker of auto transmission parts in the world, is also ratcheting up its IT budget 5% after holding back in 2002. The Chicago-based company has been expanding overseas, particularly in the Far East and Europe, and needs to invest in its global telecommunications network and software applications so data moves more efficiently as the business grows, says Chief Financial Officer George Strickler. BorgWarner's capital spending is slated to increase 7% in 2003, a pace mindfully below the company's anticipated 2003 sales growth of 8% to 10%. Likewise, Cabot Microelectronics Corp. in Aurora is investing more than $5 million on new computer systems to connect its disparate systems in Europe, Asia and the U.S. The maker of chemicals used in semiconductor manufacturing, dominant in its specialty market niche, has spent millions over the past three years building plants and research centers in the U.S. and Asia. "Everybody's cautious right now," says CEO Matthew Neville. "The mindset needs to be changed. We need to be doing things to instill confidence at this point." Stricter financial reporting, required by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act that President George W. Bush signed into law in July, is also prompting companies to bring old financial computer systems up to date. "A lot of firms have had a hold on expenses and now the business side is telling the IT side, 'We can't wait on these projects any longer,' " says Gregory David, president of the Chicago office of Homewood-based recruiter Gregory Laka & Co. Staffing requests for permanent, full-time IT positions have surged in the past few months, especially for applications development, says Mr. David. Banks and finance firms have the biggest demand, but manufacturing firms are beginning to look for technology workers as well, he says...>> Message 18363835

To: Road Walker who wrote (4577)	12/23/2002 10:44:02 AM
From: C_Johnson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25522

Hi John, I am on the record in some of the speeches that I have given to mutual fund managers and in some of our writings, saying that there will be "some" upgrading of PCs due to the expiration of older Windows OS service agreements. Like you, I have my doubts as to if it will be as intense as it was in 1999-2000 but it will be significant but I sense there will be an upgrade cycle. With that question though comes the question of how much do you spend for the processing power required for the task. Most PC users barely tap the available amount of processing power they have at their fingertips. There's a host of arguments here that I won't go in to but I will say that the market is very different than it was five years ago. Generally, I think corporate upgrades will be more price sensitive and more gradual than they were in the past even though the OS requirement has changed. I also believe that pervasive WiFi may start to get traction towards the end of 2003, and that could provide a set of new benefits that are compelling to the end user. Both on the road and in the home and office. Personally, I am one of those who would really enjoy and utilize pervasive WiFi. It's getting there but it can be much better. I have WiFi in my home office and I have a nation-wide T-Mobile account that I use in Starbucks, airports (DFW Airport has it available as do the American Airlines Admirals Clubs). I am willing to pay access fees for other WiFi connections in International airports, hotels and just about any other location. Daily I receive very large e-mails, many that are relevant to my cause (I also have a filtering program because a great many are spam), so having a high-speed connection is, to put it mildly, the only reasonable way to collect these messages. I can't tell you how frustrating it is when I have to use dial-up when I am on the road. As a side note, my ISP in the event that broadband is not available is Earthlink primarily because they have decent coverage globally. Of course, simply collecting e-mail is not the only reason or the best reason for setting up WiFi networks. In the near term I have my doubts as to whether or not the addition of WiFi capability in a laptop or PC will drive a huge surge in end market demand. In many respects this goes back to the fact that most end users barely tap the capability of the systems they are using today. Just this weekend I was at a local access point and someone sitting next to me, with WiFi capability built in to their system, was using dial-up to access the Internet. The rationale for not using WiFi - it's not "pervasive" and his corporation would not approve funds for a WiFi subscription. To be honest, I felt sorry for him as I zipped around the Internet reading newspapers at better than T-1 speed. Regards, Carl