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

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (45369)	2/2/1999 2:08:00 AM
From: Peter Singleton	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 132070

Michael, <<But so far, not one reporter has taken out his calculator and said, unit sales up 12%, prices down, what, 15%, 20%, 30%? I don't know the exact number, but negative growth it certainly is>> I'm tracking, but I still don't see enough data to support negative revenue growth in 1998. btw, we're looking for ASP's to drop about 11% to get a push on revenue, 1998 over 1997. Here're a few thoughts: 1 - Equivalent boxes year-to-year are selling for a lot less. Obvious point, of course, but it's also obvious this doesn't tell us what the ASP is. 2 - We know the consumer market migrated strongly toward the $1K box this year, and also appears to have seen strong unit growth. Together these would be a strong factor pushing the ASP across the market down, but by how much? 3 - What about the business market? Has the ASP for business boxes held firm? The continued expansion of NT into the server and workstation market (putting big pressure on Unix boxes in both cases) would argue for this, but the availability of very strong Windows machines, cheap, at a time when there's no compelling app to upsell the boxes, argues against. Does anyone have any better information on this? What does Hickey have to say? Earlie, how 'bout you? Peter

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (45369)	2/2/1999 3:25:00 AM
From: Peter Singleton	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 132070

hey, Michael, I'm still just shifting through data on PC revenues for 1998 ... From Morgan Stanley, <<A +5.6% jump in Q4 GDP -- roughly a full percentage point more than anticipated -- was the sharpest rise in 2 1/2 years and provides a very steep ramp for growth heading into 1999. The major upside surprise in the Q4 figures, was a solid rebound in capital spending. Overall business fixed investment jumped 16.7% in Q4 after dipping 0.7% in the prior quarter. A 21.0% surge in producers' durable equipment spending added 1.6 percentage points to overall GDP growth in the quarter. Continued heavy spending on technology has bolstered investment even as capacity utilization rates have dropped.>> Q3 was obviously a bummer for tech (and corporate PC sales) ... but it looks like Q4 was quite strong. How does this data fit in with your thinking about PC revenues 1998? Peter

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (45369)	2/2/1999 8:57:00 AM
From: NW Bronco Fan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

Here's a big surprise, Tech Data lowers it's outlook on the quarter and next fiscal year. biz.yahoo.com

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (45369)	2/2/1999 9:26:00 AM
From: RealMuLan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

Here is a Street.com review on Kumar's analysis on Dell: <<It merely said that Kumar believes Dell's revenue growth, sequentially, shows a slowdown in its fourth quarter, which ended Jan. 31. Sequential growth is important for investors following growth companies, because if a company is truly growing, the rate of growth should continue quarter-to-quarter as well as quarter-over-quarter. ... Said Kumar: "Dell's worldwide sequential growth rate in the December quarter was well below both the market and H-P [Hewlett Packard] (HWP:NYSE), which has been hemorrhaging for quite some time. In the U.S., which has 60% of unit mix, Dell barely showed any sequential growth. Europe, 26% of units, historically has been the fastest growth region for the company. But for the December quarter, Dell underperformed the market, growing 33% sequentially" vs. 60% for Compaq (CPQ:NYSE). >> techstocks.com

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (45369)	2/2/1999 9:35:00 AM
From: valueminded	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

Mike In reference to past conversations, it is difficult to see any type of correction with money being made as easy as AG is making it. With as much as AG is adding to reserves, I am amazed that it has not shown up in higher rates yet (esp 10 and 30 yr tbills) I do not consider the small change in rates in responce to Japanese increase in rates as anything that compares to the expansion of the money supply yet. imo On a different note, if you didn't have a position in csco, would you add one here and what price / expiration. It would seem that Lucent may turn into a formidable competitor. Caveat though is that this is one of the few areas of true revenue growth that I see. thanks

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (45369)	2/2/1999 10:49:00 AM
From: yard_man	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 132070

Seems like the appropriate time for #2 to come out would be when DELL anounces they are using AMD chips ... in 3 - 4 weeks? :-)

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (45369)	2/2/1999 11:13:00 AM
From: Earlie	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 132070

MB: I'm starting to enjoy this. (g) You are 100% accurate about the negative PC revs. for 1998. As you note, it is a struggle to get people to recognize this fact. It has been even more of a struggle to get them to recognize the massive implications of this rather historic event and even tougher to get them to be concerned about it. The good news is that the press seems to be awakening, at least here and there. (g) As you suggest, the rascals do have a number of ways to mask the problem. I love the way they all now throw their routers and servers into their "unit sales" and also into the "average selling price" equation. Boosts both numbers up rather nicely. Of course one has to read the fine print to realize what is now included in the numbers. (g) Best, Earlie