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

To: gbh who wrote (46514)	2/10/1999 11:16:00 PM
From: Knighty Tin	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 132070

Gary, It is possible that I am wrong, but I sure wouldn't use Compaq or Gateway as guides for any fundamental info of any sort. After all, Compaq thought last quarter was great, and it sucked big time. The thought the year was great, and they lost money. Everything is always great at Compaq. Which the stock reflects a little bit. Gateway has learned how to play games with their Underwear program, so that is a non-starter. IBM is sucking wind, as are Dell and Hewlett. The only honest one is the latter and they will tell it like it is this month. But IDC and DQ do not support you for the 4th quarter. Since that was the period that the touts claimed was the great recovery, losing share 4Q is a pretty bad omen. What down? Gary, pay attention. PC revenue growth was down last year and last quarter. Business revenues were down much more than consumer. This year will be worse. The last is a prediction from me. But you have to learn, when the facts are in, you can't pretend they don't exist. If you do, you will end up in investor relations at a pc co. <G> Up is not the point at cos. with huge pe ratios. They have to be up in a major way to keep the lemmings heading for the cliff. And that won't happen this time. BTW, check out CPQ's "revenues." More than all of their great 4th quarter are accounted for in receivables gorging and questionable service accounting. The only reason they bought DEC was as a smokescreen for their own mismanagement. It worked, but the wise aren't buying into such a scammy stock.

To: gbh who wrote (46514)	2/11/1999 7:49:00 AM
From: Earlie	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 132070

Gary: CPQ,... still suggesting that the quarter is "shaping up well"..... - Check what happened last year. Same kind of general remarks, but quarter was a big disaster and analysts were completely taken in. Also, "shaping up well" could be interpreted to mean anything,....not quite definitive. - CPQ wrote down DEC by $5.0 billion,....lots of room for accounting fun. Check out DEC's many divisional sales, and clean balance sheet before the arrival of CPQ There was little left to be written down - "We absolutely, positively never stuffed the channel" Herr CEO, January, 1997. Sounds like, "I never had sex with,...." (g) Why "Bashing services"? - Lower margin business than what it replaces, (hardware, software, maintenance). - Multi-year contracts provide plenty of room for questionable booking practices. - In IBM's case, the remarkable coincidence of how it grows each quarter, just enough to offset the shrinking revs in the other divisions. - Massive liabilities, depending on what has been promised, vs. what gets delivered. (Y2K promises? performance promises? system "up and running by promises?...there are already lots of suits percolating in this area). "Revs will be up at CPQ, GTW, etc....." Based on,....? "Went Negative",.....Global PC revenues were down 1998 compared with 1997. "Growth is projected to increase industry wide in 1999 compared with 1998". Units or revenues? According to? I suspect that all players will have difficulty growing their revenues with the corporate sector taking a buying holiday, but I'd be surprised more than surprised if any grew their bottom lines consequentially, which could crater the growth type PEs. Best, Earlie

To: gbh who wrote (46514)	2/11/1999 9:56:00 AM
From: Mike M2	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

Gary, the PC touts used to brag about dollar revenue growth now that ASP's have fallen they point to unit growth. The PC growth touts used to point to the global sales potential- none of them foresaw the recession/depression in Asia. The PC growth optimists also like to reference the low global penetration rate- the same was said about the auto industry before it matured. As far as the PC industry goes we seem to be at the point where ASPs have to come down to increase penetration and as Mike burke says " it ain't sales its margins" The TV industry is a great example where unit growth continued but margins disappeared. There will be much growth in Asia again but those countries look to the japanese model of closed markets and export based economies. Many US companies will be disappointed with their share of this anticipated growth. Mike