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

To: gnuman who wrote (56808)	4/21/1999 8:20:00 AM
From: gnuman	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 132070

HP's Platt says profits possible on PCs above $200 biz.yahoo.com

To: gnuman who wrote (56808)	4/21/1999 10:19:00 AM
From: Knighty Tin	Respond to of 132070

Gene, Accounts Receivable for Compaq seems in line with previous quarters. It is high because it is getting tough to get the channel to pay for anything until they've sold it. Which is also one reason cash has declined so dramatically. The cost of services rose due to the Dec Acquisition. Compaq had almost no services business and suddenly they have a large one. The scariest number for me was retained earnings. O.K., nearly no tech co. ever has free cash flow. But Compaq was one that did for awhile. Now, retained earnings are not only negative, they grew negatively nearly 33% from last quarter. Compaq fans will say that negative $510 million in retained eps does not look that bad compared to $3.6 billion in cash, and they'd be right. But it sure doesn't look good for growth prospects, IMHO. There may soon be a time when CPQ has to hit the debt market.