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Technology Stocks : All About Sun Microsystems -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Carl Wysocki who wrote (8050)	3/5/1998 10:47:00 PM
From: Scotsman	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 64865

I think we may be seeing a transition in the PC market that has sneeked up on the market. As computers have become more and more a commodity item, the people buying them are becoming more and more non-computer literate. They don't want to spend hours every night getting the latest software off of the net, or sit and read the latest PC magazine article about how 333MHz machines run Riven 32.15% faster than a 166MHz machine. They just don't get off on that stuff. All they want is something the children can work with for school, tie into the Internet for chatting, and print their letters and do thier taxes. Thus they don't need the latest high end Pentium. They are perfectly happy running some mundane AMD 486 equivilent. And they don't want to spend 2500 dollars for a computer. Hence, you have PC sales not really slowing but possibly changing to the lower priced PC's. In other words, people are buying Minivans instead of Cadallacs. Now if the above is true, I wonder how the roll out of Windows 98 will be recieved by the mass market. I personally have no intention of upgrading, and I am sure I am not alone. (I should also say I am using a Windows machine unwillingly, I am an Apple fan. But I can't get the stock analysis software I need for Mac.)

To: Carl Wysocki who wrote (8050)	3/6/1998 4:54:00 PM
From: cheryl williamson	Respond to of 64865

Carl, I agree with you, at least to a certain extent, that the two machines may have different audiences. I think that is less the case in the business market, however. Regardless of that, my original point is that the NC has created a market for cheap PC's and that those prices are driving down INTC's margins, at least for now. However, I can also see the competition with AMD as part of the mix as well. Time will tell how the NC will do. I wouldn't put money against it, however. cheers, cherylw