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

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (80258)	11/14/1998 2:46:00 PM
From: TechMkt	Respond to of 176387

The latest on the PCI-X versus NGI/O battle. Looks like DELL/INTEL are leading. Fez __________ INFORMATION WEEK November 16, 1998, Issue: 709 Section: Top Of The Week ------------------------------------------------------------ Battle for I/O standards -- Competing Designs Coming From Intel, System Vendors Mary Hayes Vendors' efforts to improve input/output performance in Intel and RISC-based servers began to take shape last week with Intel's introduction of the Next-Generation I/O interconnect and the formation of a committee to review PCIx, an alternative bus developed by Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, and IBM. As microprocessors get faster and system vendors load up servers with more CPUs than before, IT managers agree that the PCI bus used in most servers must be replaced in order to avoid I/O bottlenecks that could lead to system delays. Nicholas Applegate Capital Management, a financial-analysis firm in San Diego, hasn't experienced any bus bottlenecks on its Solaris and Windows NT servers yet, but that could change. "Our biggest need now is for more scalable servers," says system manager David Buckley. "As we get more processors into a system, I think the bus will be a problem." But which I/O solution will prevail isn't yet clear. Intel's NGI/O is backed by Dell Computer, Sun Microsystems, and others, and is still about two years away.Intel says its mainframelike channel I/O design creates a point-to-point link with devices and memory to increase reliability. "We have to get much closer to perfection," says Mitch Shults, director of server I/O marketing at Intel. Shults says early tests also indicate a 50-fold improvement in CPU efficiency with NGI/O. The Wintel platform has succeeded because vendors have gone along with Intel standards, says analyst Jerry Sheridan of Dataquest. But Compaq, HP, and IBM now want more control over enterprise platforms. PCIx, a 64-bit bus, increases I/O processing to a maximum of about 1 Gbyte per second. The committee, which includes Dell and Intel, will vote next year on whether PCIx should be a standard. While the three companies behind PCIx say customers need a solution soon, Buckley says he's in no hurry, adding that. "I'd just as soon wait for the bigger, better architecture."

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (80258)	11/14/1998 3:34:00 PM
From: Roger Smith	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 176387

HI Michelle, DELL keeps delivering great results and would continue to do so. My concern would be the P/S ratio attributed to DELL. PC Mfg. is a commodity business and DELL excels at distribution. A PC from DELL or HWP or IBM is more or less same. If CPQ/HWP/IBM start selling machines directly to the consumer then DELL may not get valuation it gets today. Every company realizes that e-commerce is key to success. Look at Apple, they also have similar model to DELL and have inventory of 7 days. Everybody had written off IBM in 92 and look how they came back. Similarly Compaq and HP would start imitating DELL's way of doing business. DELL cannot do any better than this. (6-8 days of inventory)