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Strategies & Market Trends : Technical analysis for shorts & longs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Johnny Canuck who wrote (39889)	7/13/2003 8:53:45 PM
From: Bill Cotter	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71975

Hi Harry; Thanks for posting all that technical info. I am out here still lurking and I am sure there are lots of others that appreciate what you do. Keep up the good work. Bill C.

To: Johnny Canuck who wrote (39889)	7/14/2003 4:33:59 AM
From: Johnny Canuck	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71975

New Applied Materials CEO hits reset By Reuters July 13, 2003, 8:40 PM PT With its revenue depressed by billions of dollars and its employee ranks thinned by thousands, Applied Materials has been "reset" after a "huge anomaly of buying and euphoria in the industry" that ended in 2001, new Chief Executive Michael Splinter says. Splinter, who took the helm of the world's largest maker of microchip production tools at the end of April, says he is betting his company's future on a leaner management structure, the agility to jump-start production when demand improves, and new products aimed to boost its share of a still dismal market. "You just have to believe that there are just really great opportunities for growth for us," Splinter said in an interview ahead of a chip equipment industry trade show in California. "But we can't allow ourselves to get into the situation that happened in 2000, where we get unrealistic long-term growth ideas and set the company up so that it's set for a wrong level of revenue." In his first few months on the job, Splinter, a veteran of Intel, has honed in on Applied Materials' management ranks, which some on Wall Street have called too top-heavy. Analysts at J.P. Morgan and Banc of America Securities have said insiders expect Splinter to cut out layers of management. "I guess they added me, so I just make it heavier," said Splinter, laughing, when asked if the company had too many managers. "I think what I'm trying to focus on since I've been here is getting an organization that's streamlined, so that decisions can be made quickly and we can communicate quickly up and down in the organization." Demand for microchips and the tools to make them historically travels a vicious cycle of highs and lows. In the past three years, Wall Street has bet on the "bottoming" of the cycle several times, only to be proved wrong. Splinter said chipmakers are still hesitant to expand production. But evidence is building that the most advanced chip factories, or "fabs" as they are called, have recently approached the limits of their capacity, a sign that investment in new chip-making tools could soon jump. "We think that especially on the advanced fabs that utilization is reaching a high level, so that's encouraging to us," Splinter said. "But our customers have been pretty cautious about adding capacity." Analysts are again predicting the bottom of the cycle, and while Splinter said Applied Materials isn't yet ready to expand itself, he does want it to prepare for what he sees as an inevitable return to greater demand. "I think there's significant growth left in this industry," Splinter said, citing growth in wireless networking, broadband Internet connections, and emerging markets in China, India and Russia. One of the most promising of Applied Materials' new tools, SlimCell, deposits copper onto chips, and demand for tools like it is expected to reach $565 million by 2006 from $161 million last year. Novellus Systems now dominates that market. But Mark FitzGerald, who analyzes the semiconductor equipment market for Banc of America Securities, said Applied Materials has formerly tried and failed to contest Novellus' dominance.