Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : Bosco & Crossy's stock picks,talk area -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ann Corrigan who wrote (2500)	2/2/1998 8:47:00 PM
From: Crossy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 37387

Dear Ann, sorry but I just reasoned my strategic perception about that company. In fact this is an alarming sign on UIS managament IMHO. Among PC-hardware techies (one of my traits) they were renowned for good qualiry and a solid value mix (price, service). Now Dataquests predicts PC SERVERS (next INTC GROWTH motor IMO) as moving ahead (30-40% annually !) at the expense of workstatings & database mainframes. This means that the PC boxmakers should enjoy an AUTOMATIC enlargment of their revenue base (call it economies of scope) to supply markets recently not yet covered (high bandwith end), Other companies (p.e. SQNT) excel because of their innovative coupling-technologies of standard components (Pentium Pro, Pent-II) to arrive at a ccNUMA coupled machine with, let's say 25-100 CPUs running UNIX and the like. Quite powerful, that is to say and a direct blow to the big-iron makers that do NOT cover their turfs. An alliance with INTC (even only in PC segment helps big-time to ensure life-support, I would say). Also CPQ is very well positioned. Remember DEC buyout and the AMD alliance with DEC ? Very schrewd, could give CPQ an edge in sillicon design as well. IMHO, the best boxmaker out there and the only one with a direct link to INTC arch-enemy AMD. Those are the winners from this trend. Now, who loses and who is immune according to my reasoning ? Immune or small winners could be: HWP with their INTC alliance to deliver the Merced. Call it the: "if You can't beat them, join them" theme, finally ending the many semantic CISC-RISC rivalries. IBM covers all those niches: PowerPC, AMD link, Cyrix 2nd Source, INTC contacts. Who says You can't do it all... SUN rides on the Internet to cover Sparc weaknesses. More a set-top platform IMO, could be a nice takeover target. Also a merger with AMD & IDTI makes sense from a design point of view.. IDTI & AMD & NSM might have good chances to get even more value out than INTC but confined more to the lower end. An exception probably being AMD's upcoming K7 which looks to be a formidable high-end platform. Who loses IMO ? UIS : cut off life-support (PC Segment). Future growth not required ? Growth with mainframes & workstations alone in light of current analytical underlying trends ? No, I hope not ! AAPL : one quarter in the black doesn't subsitute a compelling strategy. Not much alternative to offer, MAC-clones were declared "dead" recently. Well AAPL could be soon, too.... SGI : animation & graphics are being ported to other paltforms. The company is already "experiencing" tough times. Could suffer the Apple fate, probably. These are the arguments behind my conclusion. Could be wrong but if INTC is succesful in executing their strategy on market-segments, this should be the resulting consequences.. best wishes CROSSY