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

To: Mohan Marette who wrote (40949)	5/8/1998 10:36:00 AM
From: Meathead	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 176387

Mohan, remember, many CPQ die-hards and consumer-mentality bozos still believe that Dell is making a huge mistake by avoiding the sub-1000 segment. I for one am relieved that they have no influence over Dell's business decisions<ggg>. MEATHEAD

To: Mohan Marette who wrote (40949)	5/8/1998 11:49:00 AM
From: jim kelley	Respond to of 176387

Mohan, A few additional comments RE:CPQ's profits in 98 = 0 1.Massive write down/write off or whatever for the lay-off- 2 billion. The write down is likely to be 2B charged to DEC before the completion of the merger. Leaving DEC with .7B in cash to contribute to the pot. However, there is now talk of another round of layoffs totaling 10,000 to happen sometime later after the merger. This chalks up another 1.3 B This leaves CPQ underwater (cash wise) about .6B from the DEC contribution to the money pot. 2.CPQ Server business = decreasing profit margin,and loss of market share. CPQ's margins declined to 18% from 27% the previous quarter. Now they could decline even further in face of the margin pressures on their most profitable product niche. 3.Fantastic overall growth but most of it coming from Sub Zero segment which means less moolah to go to the bottom line. No comment. 4.Competitiors like DELL,HP taking market share from high end enterprise business.Unless the size of the market grows proportionately CPQ will have hard time not loosing some of the high-end business to competition. They are already losing business here and in the notebook arena. They are however still dominating the subzero market although they are losing share. 5. There is only so much mindshare to go around. CPQ needs to pay attention to implementation of the ODM model. But the prognosis here is not good for a number of reasons. Channel assembly is likely to produce a new more virulent strain of white box assemblers who will bite the hand that fed them. Regards, Jim Kelley

To: Mohan Marette who wrote (40949)	5/8/1998 1:23:00 PM
From: rudedog	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 176387

I'm in a good mood since both Dell and CPQ are moving - it's a 2 cyl engine driving money my way. But even all of this good news can't keep me wondering why you guys have drifted into pure fantasy in your analysis of CPQ. Nothing in this analysis has much to do with Dell - even if this preposterous series of events came to pass, why would Dell benefit? Also as I have been pointing out for a while this line of analysis is devoid of supporting data. It is just wishful thinking. 'What if there were no CPQ, think of how nice that would be for Dell.' While you're at it, why not forecast the decline of IBM to a $10B second tier player? Why not pretend that HP will abandon computers to concentrate on the printer business? Do you have any evidence at all that CPQ 3Q and 4Q earnings will be lower than current estimates? Why do you think that the growth has been in sub-1K product? I believe that the consumer product mix has an ASP of nearly $2000. CPQ appears to be selling 3 times as many servers and workstations as Dell. Do you really believe all of that will be at no margin, and that Dell will sell at high margin at the same time? I enjoy the well thought out research and debate that many on this thread like to engage in, but I am a little disturbed by pure speculation with no supporting data presented as fact. It won't help anyone make an intelligent investment decision.