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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Peter Singleton who wrote (42875)	1/11/1999 11:33:00 AM
From: Knighty Tin	Respond to of 132070

Peter, The first and by far the most important specific information I have are reports from the channel saying that business sucked. Ingram and Inacom are the latest, though Microage, Compucom and Vanstar warned earlier. Then we have reports from the retailers quoting down same store sales for pc sales. Tandy was a special disaster and Walmart may actually get rid of pcs, they are so slow. Then, we have the lowering of prices dramatically early into the New year, always a sign that there is too much inventory in the channel. Though the channel sells to retailers, its main focus is business buyers, and that hasn't been happening in spades. Y2K hardware buying is pretty much done and there is absolutely no other reason to buy new boxes now. In fact, there are great reasons, such as lousy eps and Y2K, to back off for a long time, or at least until something new appears in pcs to make you want to buy. Less specifically, MUEI doing horribly while GTW announced that sales were slow in October and November. Even Dell's growth rate fell by 10% while receivables jumped by 20% last quarter, and they missed their whisper # for the first time in 7 years. We don't have the December #s for these direct sellers, yet, but my guess is that the slowdown in channel sellers has not been compensated for by a huge pickup in the direct sellers. In fact, my guess is that they stank the house out. MB