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Technology Stocks : DELL: Facts, Stats, News and Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gabriel008 who wrote (188)	10/16/1998 8:23:00 AM
From: Mick Mørmøny	Respond to of 335

Dell, Compaq clean their clocks Computer giants Dell and Compaq are making sure they protect their PC customers from any Y2K threat to their computers by separately taking actions to address potential glitches in the real-time-clock related to the century date-change. Addressing what both companies believe to be a "non-mainstream problem," the two companies, within the next few weeks, plan to release free tools on their Web sites that prevent real-time-clocks (RTCs) with two-digit century fields from crashing during the century date rollover. The decision comes in the wake of ongoing criticism by some industry observers that major computer vendors were not addressing the RTC issue adequately enough to protect their customers from potential Y2K failures when the new century comes. In May, Compaq was publicly challenged by a United Kingdom Y2K testing firm. The firm claimed that the computer maker was engaged in false advertising because it ran adds in Britain that its computers were fully Y2K compliant despite what the testing firm found when it ran tests on RTCs in Compaq's systems and found some failures. Compaq agreed that the real-time clock inside its machines won't properly recognize dates after January 1, 2000, but insisted that this does not affect the overall performance of its systems. With the release of these tools that specifically address the Y2K impact on the RTC, it appears Compaq, as well as Dell, are acknowledging, albeit softly, the seriousness of the issue, if not the problem. The two companies said the problem is not widespread and only affects those systems that use non-standard applications, or those that are custom made. "There is a perception that there are non-standard applications that will go to the RTC on the Year 2000 and will crash the computer," Dave Cunningham, program manager for Y2K at Dell Computer, told CNET News.com. "To handle this we have gone on to provide a device-driver that" automatically corrects the RTC before it returns an incorrect year. Dell has licensed a third-party product that it is calling the Dell Year 2000 RTC. Analyst praise the two companies for addressing the issue, and despite both computer makers' claims, it may indicate a larger problem than what is generally believed. "I believe that this is a change in the current Compaq/Dell Y2K position," said Giga analyst Norbert Kriebel. "They have acknowledged that the RTC does play an important role, but it is upsetting that they are still handling this like a child caught with their hand in the cookie jar. They keep trying to divert the attention away from the issue." Both companies said the only real Y2K issues in PCs are related to the BIOS system rather than the RTC, because most industry-standard applications and operating systems conduct time-related functions with the BIOS. They both have provided BIOS Y2K patches for their systems for sometime. "This device-driver tool corrects a problem that is not mainstream, and is for a minority group of users," said Patrick Ward, a spokesperson for Compaq. For these users Compaq developed this device driver. It is designed for Customers with MS-DOS, Windows 3.x, Windows for Workgroups, Windows 95, and Windows 98 environments installed on older model PCs without an upgradable ROM BIOS, or, customers running non-industry-standard applications that bypass the ROM BIOS and operating system to access date data directly from the RTC. "These same 'non-industry-standard applications' run on newer machines too. So this tool must be applicable to them as well, unless they are assuming that PCs with upgradable BIOSes have already been upgraded to a BIOS that will automatically update the RTC century byte. Again confirming the importance of the RTC, " said Kriebel. news.com

To: Gabriel008 who wrote (188)	10/22/1998 11:19:00 AM
From: Gabriel008	Respond to of 335

Top Stories: Gateway to Uncertainty By Eric Moskowitz Staff Reporter 10/22/98 9:14 AM ET Flashy advertisements are one thing, but Wall Street wants to see a return to predictable earnings before it declares its love for Gateway (GTW:NYSE). Investors are trying to get a read on the PC maker before it announces third-quarter earnings after the market's close today. Analysts expect the company to earn 47 cents per share in the quarter ended in September. Normally a predictable earnings machine, Gateway surprised investors by earning 38 cents a share in its June quarter, missing estimates by 6 cents. The news sent the stock down 10%. Gateway is betting that by building brand awareness in the consumer and small-business markets outside its direct business model, it can continue expanding at its five-year annual growth rate of 23%. But Condor Capital President Ken Schapiro says Gateway is up against some tough competitors: the ultraefficient Dell (DELL:Nasdaq) on the direct end and the business services giants Hewlett-Packard (HWP:NYSE) and IBM (IBM:NYSE) on the other. Last year, the North Sioux City, N.D., PC seller embarked on a consumer-oriented retail campaign to further its brand name by introducing a line of Gateway Country stores. Today, the company has 96 Gateway Country stores in strip malls and suburban outposts across the country and plans to add 40 more by the end of the year. This spring, Gateway furthered this initiative by introducing its largest publicity campaign ever, YourWare, which allows customers to buy PCs and suites of PC-related products such as peripherals, software and Internet access while paying over a two-year period. While analysts such as Gerard Klauer Mattison's Lou Mazzucchelli love the company's Country stores, others believe these retail PC outposts are a big step in the wrong direction. Gateway's direct model is where "Dell just really clobbers them," says Condor Capital's Schapiro, whose firm doesn't have a position in Gateway or Dell. Mazzucchelli, who rates the stock a buy and has done no underwriting for Gateway, insists that the Country stores hold no inventory and need to sell just 100 PCs a week to break even. "It's a great way to build customers," he says. "I believe they want to have hundreds of stores in the U.S." Steve Massey, store manager of a Gateway Country store in Latham, N.Y., agrees. "I think it's a plus for Gateway because, for one thing, each store has software training classes that are 100% profit," he explains. Massey says his store inside the Latham Mall, complete with a cow motif and a floor-to-ceiling barn silo, is doing good business, and the company told him to expect to see hundreds more, "including three or four in Manhattan." While the stores make up a negligible part of Gateway's revenue at this point, some investors are concerned about the direction that the company is taking with these stores. "We just don't think management understands the economics of retail," worries one New York-based money manager who requested anonymity. He sold his Gateway shares after visiting with a number of the company's senior managers. Jim Poyner, an analyst with Oppenheimer, says that Gateway will disappoint investors Thursday because its operating expenses on business operations for segments like its Country stores are just too high. Poyner, a longtime bear on Gateway, upgraded the company from an underperform to hold last week but notes he still is puzzled about Gateway's upcoming quarter. "Gateway has gotten more aggressive than it was in its second quarter and its factories are running full out, but I think they are selling cheap boxes," says Poyner, whose firm hasn't done any Gateway underwriting. He predicts the company will earn 44 cents, which is 3 cents below consensus estimates. Mazzucchelli, however, says his sources are telling him that this will be a strong quarter for the company and sees it earning 50 cents a share for the quarter. In last year's third quarter, the company took a $114 million charge for excess inventory and an acquisition, and reported a loss of 8 cents per share. This should make its year-over-year comparisons unusually robust this quarter. A seemingly great quarter may lift the company's stock price. But beware. Three out of the last four times Gateway's stock price has hit a temporary peak, there was a rash of insider selling by some of Gateway's key executives. Most recent was an options-related sale of stock by Vice President Richard Snyder on Sept. 23, which called a short-term top on the company at 56 1/4, according to Baseline. A month before that another vice president, Bartholomew Brown, made an options-related sale at another top of 58 3/16. And all the way back in May, CEO Ted Waitt sold more than $21 million worth of shares at a temporary high of 57 11/16. Soon after the sale, Gateway's stock dropped all the way to 43. (The stock closed yesterday at 47.) So investors may want to keep an eye on insider selling if Gateway's stock makes another run.

To: Gabriel008 who wrote (188)	10/22/1998 11:34:00 AM
From: Gabriel008	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 335

Server Wars - HP and IBM Go After Compaq Death, taxes, and Compaq with dominant server share. Two of those three things are certainties in life, and one is a certainty in the market for Intel based servers. However, looking at recent data from ZD Storeboard, it appears that the third part of the trilogy might be encountering a bit of pressure. For roughly the last two years, Compaq has maintained roughly 60-70% market share of Intel Servers sold through the channel. With a blip here or there, the shape of the market share curve has remained pretty stable, up until June of this year. While things did bounce back for Compaq in July, the sense I get from looking at the data is that the curves and the actions of HP and IBM seem to indicate that we've seen the last 70% channel share month for Compaq for a while. The reality is that servers are now so critical to profits in the Intel-based systems business that neither IBM or HP can afford to allow Compaq to continue at these historically high share levels. So the combination of better products, renewed emphasis on sales programs, and better sales tactics to support servers have allowed HP and IBM to eat into Compaq's share a bit. The result is that for the first time in a long while, both HP and IBM have share of sales that is at 20%. This is new news. However, while the trend is clear, there is one caveat. Overall sales of servers in August were down significantly, both sequentially and year-over-year. So one has to be careful in analyzing the latest decline. The decline, in August, is not due to a shortage of Compaq product, but rather it is due to a success by HP and IBM. Looking at Compaq's history, their sales out can fluctuate, but historically not by this much. The only real answer to the question will be to see how sales results turn out for September. Typically, servers see more sales in the last month of the quarter than do PCs. So check back here at InfoBeads Insider to get the details, and see if the server business is becoming more competitive, and no longer a captive market for Compaq.