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Technology Stocks : S3 (A LONGER TERM PERSPECTIVE) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mark Chavez who wrote (9145)	1/30/1998 7:53:00 PM
From: Cosmo Kramer	Respond to of 14577

Many people I know are just upgrading their motherboards and processors. No need for another 17 monitor, HD, floppy, modem, and yes sometimes even the video card. For a few hundred you can have a screaming machine. I've had a Pentium 150 from Micron for close to 3 years and it does everything I want. (Except make my stocks go up!!) Cheers, mark

To: Mark Chavez who wrote (9145)	1/30/1998 7:59:00 PM
From: Cosmo Kramer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14577

After that last message I find this on the Micron thread: Report Predicts 11 Percent Growth In PC Sales (01/30/98; 1:38 p.m. EST) By Roger C. Lanctot, Computer Retail Week Consumers will buy 16.6 million PCs in 1998, an 11 percent increaseover the 14.9 million units sold in 1997, Sanford Bernstein analyst Ursula Moran predicted this week. Moran said the growing demand for more bells and whistles in consumer systems will help to prevent the sort of price erosion that devastated average sales prices in 1997. Moran released the findings in a conference call earlier this week to announce the results of the third-annual Sanford Bernstein report on consumer PC demand. The report is based on a telephone survey of 1,500 households. Despite the anticipated growth, brand preference among consumers is weak and fewer consumers than ever know what microprocessor is inside their computer, Moran said. "More than half of PC households do not know what CPU is in their computer. This level of uncertainty has increased from 25 percent in 1995 and 34 percent in 1996," she said. Consumers in higher-income households who are purchasing an additional or replacement PC are more likely to report being "uncommitted" to a particular processor than are lower-income households buying a second PC. Consumers in lower-income households buying their first PC are more inclined to be "uncommitted" than higher-income households buying their first PC. Almost half of the survey respondents who said they planned to buy a PC said they would not pay extra for an Intel microprocessor. The only thing consumers appear to be sure of: They want more computing power and bigger and better computers, and are willing to pay for additional memory, larger displays, and other add-ons, Moran said. As a result, the average system price in 1998 is expected to be $1,775, unchanged from the $1,773 in 1997. "Consumers rarely go into a store knowing exactly what they are going to buy. They do have an idea of what they are going to spend," Moran said. Roughly 55 percent of households intending to purchase a PC expressed no brand preference, Moran said. But 100 percent of current owners of Gateway and Dell computers said they would buy the same brands again. Moran questioned whether the brand loyalty for those two companies was driven by product quality, customer service, or the fact that the customers were able to order the exact computer they wanted. More than 60 percent of households did not know where they got their PC, and another 35 percent didn't know where they expect to purchase their next PC. But for those consumers who did know where they bought their home computer in 1997, Best Buy topped the list with more than 8 percent of respondents, followed by Sears and Circuit City (about 5 percent each), Gateway (4 percent), and CompUSA (3 percent). Best Buy and Circuit City were the No. 1 choices for future purchases, each with about 9 percent of respondents. The next most popular sources for future PC purchases were CompUSA and Gateway (about 5 percent each) and Staples and Computer City (about 3 percent each). "CompUSA put in a respectable showing, particularly given that the CompUSA store base is significantly smaller than Best Buy or Circuit City," Moran said. Moran expressed some concern that following a year of consolidation in the retail industry, most of the largest retail computer chains have significant expansion plans for 1998. She foresees an 11 percent increase in computer retailing capacity of more than 1.5 million square feet. "The only fly in the ointment for retailers is capacity growth," Moran said. "The capacity growth rate fell off from 18 percent in 1996 to 8 percent in 1997 as a result of Best Buy's difficulties, the Staples-Office Depot merger, and store closings at Computer City and Incredible Universe. The 11 percent rate of growth isn't an immediate concern, but it is equal to revenue growth. "We remain optimistic that several of the retailers in our coverage are well-positioned to profit in this environment," she said. Regarding the type of consumers who will buy PCs in 1998, Moran said buyers of additional and replacement computers in 1997 exceeded her forecast by 19 percent and she expects another strong showing from this group of PC buyers in 1998. Of the 16.6 million computers expected to be bought by consumers in 1998, Moran said that 6.7 will be sold to first-time buyers, a 12 percent increase compared with 1997, and 9.8 million will be sold to consumers buying replacement or additional computers, an increase of 11 percent over 1997 levels. "The first-time buyers did come back to the market in 1997," Moran said. "But the replacement/addition market didn't fall off as expected." A quarter of non-PC households plan to purchase a PC in 1998 and one third of PC households plan to purchase an additional or replacement PC, she said. Stock Lookup Search Archives

To: Mark Chavez who wrote (9145)	2/2/1998 2:22:00 AM
From: Parker Benchley	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 14577

The bottom line is that upgrading the hardware is becoming an option rather than a necessity for a lot of users, George's experience with Micron is a clear example. Mark, At the risk of appearing unimaginative, that was the point the tech at Micron was making. I'm not a techie person, but I do see a longer life span for the actual hardware for the reasons both you and Micron observed. I have real estate MLS (Multiple Listing Service) software which is DOS and graphically based that still runs fine on a 386. Many agents still have a 386 or 486 in their offices. It's a matter of "need versus" speed and how fast is enough? This could be a surprise to Intel. I know this will not impede progress as eventually all hardware will go the way of previous dinosaurs and end up as a fossil fuel. Of course by that time the holograpic wars will have been settled intra-dimensionally and the more pernicious time warp chameleons will have found a uniform color in which fluid quantum genesis shall no longer be a mere dream of quasar infidels. That's also the time I uh, imagine Phil may find a little tact. Neener neener. <g> Onward, George