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Technology Stocks : Dell Technologies Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TigerPaw who wrote (175340)	11/8/2005 2:14:59 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 176387

Dell Testing AMD Waters thestreet.com <<...this isn't the first time that rumors have surfaced that Dell is considering adding AMD processors to its lineup. And with AMD's increasing importance in the marketplace, and Dell's recent missteps, the prospect of the two companies hooking up takes on greater significance. Last week Dell pared back its guidance for the third quarter, which it reports Thursday, cutting its revenue outlook and revising its EPS estimate to the low end of its previous guidance. That warning underscored questions about Dell's strategy of offering only Intel-based PCs and the competitive disadvantage inherent in such a tack. The question is particularly poignant in the market for industry-standard servers, where AMD's Opteron processor has recently displaced Intel as the performance leader. The Opteron's strength has won over Hewlett-Packard (HPQ:NYSE), IBM (IBM:NYSE) and Sun (SUNW:Nasdaq), which have all added AMD-based servers to their catalogues in the past year and a half. In the second quarter of 2005, Dell's server and networking division accounted for $1.3 billion, or 10% of the company's overall revenue. Not having an Opteron server puts Dell at a disadvantage when competing for customers on a performance and power consumption basis, notes Insight64 analyst Nathan Brookwood. On the other hand, not everyone cares about performance, and conservative IT managers are perfectly content sticking with the Intel name. And while Intel's close relationship with Dell allows the computer maker to price its servers competitively with AMD-based servers, Brookwood notes that other financial factors also come into play: because a corporation's back-end data center can handle its workload with fewer Opteron processors than Intel processors, the company saves money on software licensing fees, which typically are priced per processor. Eventually, says Brookwood, the business case for Opteron processors could become an irresistible force for Dell...>>

To: TigerPaw who wrote (175340)	11/9/2005 2:59:43 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 176387

Two internal memos authored by Gates and Ozzie leak out of Microsoft: Internet Services Crucial, Microsoft Memos Say By JOHN MARKOFF The New York Times Published: November 9, 2005 nytimes.com SAN FRANCISCO - Microsoft must fundamentally alter its business or face being at a significant competitive disadvantage to a growing array of companies offering Internet services, according to memorandums written by two of the company's top executives. Last week, Microsoft, the largest software maker, announced that it would offer two new Internet services - Windows Live and Office Live - in response to companies including Apple, Google, Salesforce.com and Yahoo that have created new businesses based on direct Internet connections with users. In separate memos distributed internally to senior executives on Oct. 30, Microsoft's chairman, Bill Gates, and a chief technology officer, Ray Ozzie, warned that the new "Internet services" era could be significantly disruptive for the company. The memos were obtained on Tuesday afternoon by The New York Times. A Microsoft spokesman confirmed their authenticity, but would not comment on their substance. They point to a variety of threats to Microsoft's Windows and Office franchises, from advertising-supported Internet businesses like those being pursued by Google and Yahoo to, as Mr. Gates notes, a new "grass-roots adoption and popularization model" that has made it easier for start-up companies to reach large audiences at low cost. The document written by Mr. Ozzie, titled "The Internet Services Disruption," criticizes Microsoft for moving too slowly to capitalize on technologies it developed and for failing to capitalize on industry trends. He cites Microsoft's failure to adequately pursue a technology known as Ajax - which makes it possible for Internet-based applications to mimic the appearance and responsiveness of desktop PC programs - as a clear case of company sluggishness. He also noted that the company was slow to move ahead on Internet searching, even after Mr. Gates gave a speech in 1991 predicting "information at your fingertips." "We knew search would be important," Mr. Ozzie wrote, "but through Google's focus they've gained a tremendously strong position." The memo acknowledged an earlier effort by Microsoft to shift its strategy that led to the Justice Department's antitrust lawsuit of the late 1990's. "We will design and license Windows and our Internet-based services as separate products, so customers can choose Windows with or without Microsoft's services," Mr. Ozzie wrote, indicating that the services would have software connections so that "competing services can plug into Windows in the same manner as Windows services."