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

To: stock bull who wrote (84864)	12/11/1998 11:04:00 AM
From: BGR	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 176387

Stock Bull, The article that you posted mentions what many others believe but not the rationale behind their beliefs. I would not classify it as a joke, but most definitely inconsequential as it presents no new information. Surely it is quite well known - and have been for some time - that some expect DELL to falter and CPQ to shine. Expectations are based on analysis and are worthless otherwise, and the only piece of analysis that the article provides is that of Kumar regarding DELL's desktop segments growth. That has been discussed to death on this thread during DELL's earnings and you may look up the posts by CTC regarding that (non and possibly misinterpreted)-issue. However, even more ludicrous is the claim that it is a baby step for CPQ and a giant one for DELL. It may look like a baby step for CPQ because of favorable earnings comparisons (it's earnings last year were not very robust thus making comparisons easier) but what about the next 5 year business plan? I have read numerous articles in the popular media stating w/o any analysis that all indirects are going to go direct and eat DELL's lunch, whereas the HBR article clearly explained the intricacies of that model and how hard it is for a company to switch it's model. This is another issue which has been discussed to death in this thread. Even rudedog (who has been unusually fair in his analysis despite a slight CPQ bias IMO :-))would not claim that it is going to be easy and he has better business knowledge that several of these so-called analysts and money runners. And, no new information was presented by this article in this regard too. What that article completely misses is the attempted transition (and the risks involved therein) by CPQ from a box-maker to an integrated hardware, systems software and services provider more in the lines to IBM. Personally I feel that to be the most interesting piece of the puzzle for the CPQ investor (I am not one). And finally, money flow means very little in the long term. -Apratim.

To: stock bull who wrote (84864)	12/11/1998 11:10:00 AM
From: rudedog	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 176387

Stock Bull - What makes you think its a joke? Because nothing bad could ever happen to Dell. It doesn't matter that CPQ has 5 times the R&D budget, Dell will still make better products. It doesn't matter that Dell has to grow at more than twice CPQ's rate to maintain the same expectation level - MSD will make it happen. It doesn't matter that we see day after day of key initiatives between CPQ and MSFT - big customers don't care about MSFT anyway, as long as that DELL label is on the product. It doesn't matter that CPQ has nearly 10 times the share in enterprise storage - DELL will 'eat CPQ's breakfast, lunch and dinner'. CPQ could give their products away, people would still prefer DELL. Right???? I like Dell the company a lot, and I have no real concerns for their long term performance. But these 'head in the sand' comments make me want to puke. DELL has some significant challenges in 1Q and 2Q. The management knows this and is obviously taking steps to get ahead, but it will take some time and they have underestimated how fierce the battle will be in the key enterprise space IMO. My current gut feel says that CPQ will catch DELL in stock price sometime in 1H99, maybe as early as 1Q. DELL will need to do more than just continue to march if they want to break out again.