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

To: T L Comiskey who wrote (80889)	11/16/1998 11:12:00 PM
From: Mohan Marette	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 176388

Look out Gateway, DELL closing in FAST. Tim: Look at'em leap. Not too bad for DELL considering they are not even supposed to be big in to the consumer segment,well not yet at least. ===================================================== DELL CROWDING GATEWAY IN CONVERGENCE INDEX NEW YORK, NEW YORK, U.S.A., 1998 NOV 16 (Newsbytes) -- By Craig Menefee, Newsbytes. Media Metrix, which follows PC convergence based on multimedia capabilities of installed PCs in the US, says in its most recent report that Gateway remains top-ranked supplier to US consumers. Dell is closing in fast, having leaped four positions ahead to within a few points of Gateway. The Convergence Index measures the installed base of US consumer PCs to support fully interactive audio and video over a network such as the Internet. A "perfect score" -- meaning every PC is capable of handling multimedia over a network -- would be 1,000. The newest rating for all PCs is 606, Media Metrix reported. According to Bruce Ryon, the Convergence Index is really, at base, a power index for PCs. "We wanted a single index to show who has the most power in their installed base out there, in terms of their ability to handle high-speed internet connections," Ryon told Newsbytes in a call from the floor of the Comdex trade show now underway in Las Vegas. "We came up with this convergence index." Ryon stated, "In light of the tremendous growth in Internet usage, the big question is how quickly consumers will upgrade their PCs to be fully on par with the dream of interactive television." Among the major brands, Gateway's rating is highest in the new report, at 665. This means the installed base of Gateway PCs is higher in technology power than the average US household PC, with a larger installed base of Pentium/586 PCs, faster processors, audio capability, higher speed modems, etc. Dell jumped from sixth to second rank with a Convergence Index of 661, largely from a surge in its installed base of Pentium II's and 56.6kbps modems, Media Metrix says. Of all major original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), Dell leads in the installed base growth of Pentium II's and 56.6kbps modems. HP is not far behind Dell at 656, while Acer at fourth place lags further back at 630. Next in order are Compaq at 621, NEC at 590, AST at 607, Packard Bell at 549 and IBM at 506. Ryon told Newsbytes, "What we're seeing here is direct channel firms -- Gateway, Dell and to a lesser extent Compaq -- providing a bigger boost to what people are getting. You're seeing traditional retail companies like IBM and Packard Bell, in particular, sliding." The Media Metrix Convergence Index uses ten installed-base technology elements in US consumer PCs, including processor type, processor speed, RAM size, hard disk storage, optical drive speed, graphics resolution, color depth, audio processor, external communications speed and operating system. Each category has a weight applied to the importance of each category, e.g., communications speed is rated higher than CD-ROM speed. More on Media Metrix and its reports can be found on the World Wide Web at mediametrix.com