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Technology Stocks : Helix Technology, a cold play on semiconductor equipment -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mopgcw who wrote (1086)	5/6/2003 8:19:45 AM
From: Sidney Street	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1227

"Little hope for survival" - 16 companies including our dear friend HELX. Even if you agree with his premise - that PC industry is no longer a growth engine - it's ridiculous to conclude that Helx dies (along with 15 others). He ignores other cryopump markets already established, eg LCD fab, and the prospect of innovation leading to new app's for semi's. Or, what about new app's for PC's? Note that Apple sold a million Itune downloads first week. If these were highly leveraged companies, they might be in danger. Most are not. Helx certainly is not. I still believe that Helx and some other companies on the "death list" have profitable little niches that they can protect with patents and continued innovation, and strong market penetration. Here's an excerpt from a more balanced piece (Sunday NYT), discussing the same fact of life - computers as commodities: May 4, 2003 Technology Hits a Midlife Bump By STEVE LOHR MARTIN PICHINSON is one of Silicon Valley's undertakers. His company, Sherwood Partners, has carved out a prosperous niche as an expert in shutting down failed technology start-ups on behalf of venture capital firms and other disenchanted investors. And, this summer, he plans to move his company's headquarters to Palo Alto, Calif., the heartland of opportunity for his rapidly growing business. Mr. Pichinson, 57, does not always bury companies. Some can be rehabilitated or sold off. But Sherwood Partners has shut down 150 once-aspiring start-ups in the last two years, and Mr. Pichinson figures that thousands more are destined to fold. His company stands ready to help things along. "We're doctors of reality," said Mr. Pichinson, who began his business career in the garment industry. "You don't have to have a Harvard M.B.A. to know that more money has to come in than go out." The winnowing of the corporate population is just one sign that the information technology industry is maturing in ways that will affect technology companies, their customers and investors for years to come. But what's painful for Silicon Valley is beneficial for those who use the stuff it produces. The industry, according to Irving Wladawsky-Berger, a strategy executive at I.B.M., has entered "the post-technology era." It is not that technology itself no longer matters, he explained. Instead, he said, the steady advances in chips, disk storage and software mean that the focus is no longer on the technology itself — with its arcane language of processing speeds and gigabytes — but on what people and companies can do with it. As a result, industry executives and analysts say, the balance of power is shifting away from technology suppliers and toward their corporate customers. At the same time, the use of lower-cost building blocks of computer hardware and software is spreading, making it easier for companies and individuals to share data and work together using industry standards rather than remain dependent on one or two main suppliers. These trends, they say, point to increased pressure on prices and profits for most technology companies, a good deal for corporate customers and a very tricky time for investors. <snip>