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Technology Stocks : PC Sector Round Table -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Stitch who wrote (1034)	10/15/1998 1:11:00 AM
From: Gottfried	Respond to of 2025

Stitch, FWIW I lean towards the CPQ view also. Of course my views are only the product of what I read. Jubak, who seems a level headed fellow, has made plans for a slow growth scenario - with some insurance... "How I cope with rampant uncertainty" investor.msn.com GM

To: Stitch who wrote (1034)	10/15/1998 1:16:00 AM
From: Carl R.	Respond to of 2025

I like CPQ. I lean towards Y2K stimulating PC purchases as people and businesses dump older PC's before the deadline. However, I also lean towards a snap back in 2000 - the older PCs would be replaced before the end of 2000, so purchases to replace older PCs will plunge after Jan. 1, leaving only new purchases. Carl

To: Stitch who wrote (1034)	10/15/1998 4:28:00 AM
From: Pierre-X	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 2025

Re: That wonderful aroma ... got a little CPQ on the stove? Remember Gillian's market-share graph from diskcon showing 40% of the PC market as yet occupied by third-tier vendors? Remember her point that the first-tier vendors still have room to maintain growth rates exceeding the overall growth rate by invading "whitebox" turf? Plus, I am in agreement on Y2K as a demand stimulant. I think it's clear that new software almost ALWAYS creates hardware upgrade pressure. When's the last time a software upgrade had LOWER recommended hardware specs? <g> I think DELL is a better COMPANY than CPQ. I've always hated CPQ >>products<<. On the subject of easier/smoother/more reliable: I don't think Microsoft will pull this off alone. Part of the problem isn't their fault--it's the incredible profusion of parts out there. The number of parts permutations easily exceed billions, certainly many, many orders of magnitude greater than what is reasonably testable. Dozens of different motherboards times dozens of different CPUs times dozens of dfferent video boards times dozens of different types of RAM times dozens of different types of sound boards times dozens of different network adapters times dozens of different printers ... you get the picture. Frankly, sometimes I'm amazed most of it works most of the time. One way for reliability to advance ceteris paribus is to reduce the part variety. The top-tier vendors are accomplishing this by removing smaller vendors from the universe. The benefits of this are obvious: if you own a machine from Dell which has fifty thousand identical brethren out there, it's much more likely that new parts materializing in the PC universe will be tested against YOUR MACHINE, and that parts makers will make a SPECIFIC effort to support YOUR MACHINE. I won't be surprised if, over the long haul, the absolute number of PC vendors falls dramatically, much like the HDD sector has. And look at the amazing reliability and performance gains we've seen in that industry. God bless, PX