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Technology Stocks : Compaq -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lynn who wrote (54966)	3/27/1999 10:38:00 AM
From: John Koligman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 97611

Hi Lynn, A couple more words on IBM's 'transformation'. In some ways, I think they had it easier than CPQ because their 'core' business was still essentially a high profit monopoly that stopped growing. They never did lose all that much market share in the mainframe business. They never had a Dell slugging it out with them. Strongest mainframe competition (for awhile anyway) was Hitachi with their Skyline series of bipolar mainframes. When mainframe demand came back, it really bought IBM some time to get the other business groups moving. Even so, overall revenue growth has been sluggish for the company, and many critics say that the only reason the earnings numbers are there is due to the massive stock buyback program and other 'financial engineering' tricks. As I said though, WS has bought Gerstner's program and the appreciation in the stock (a ten bagger at IBM's recent peak, from a low of 40 5/8 around the time Gerstner came onboard to 200 post split) reflects it. Best regards, John