April 17, 2008
PC shipments: A mixed bag
Along with positive earnings reports this week by IBM and Intel, the latest figures on PC shipments pubslihed on Wednesday by Gartner and IDC should offer some relief to technology investors who have been trying to assess the likely impact of a US slowdown on sales of IT equipment.
Both groups found that the US slowdown had begun to hit PC shipments in the US. But they also found that slower US growth was more than made up for by a stronger-than-expected preformance overseas.
Still, investors would be wise not to breathe a sigh of relief just yet. For one thing, it’s likely that PC makers were forced to cut prices significantly to counter sagging demand in the US - a move that is likely to eat away at the industry’s already thin margins. We’ll know more about that next month, when the big PC companies report their latest results.
In the meantime, investors trying to sort out their investment strategies will have plenty to chew over, particuarly when it comes to Dell and Hewlett-Packard, the world’s biggest PC makers.
Gartner’s latest figures showed that HP’s US shipments shrank in the first quarter. The decline was a slight one, but potentially worrying given a strong improvement by Dell, which is a year into its own turnaround.
Unfortunately for investors, it’s unlikely that the PC industry’s muddled picture will clear up anytime soon.
the PC sales slowdown is directly related to Energy and Housing:
1) The housing sub-prime bankers debacle is affecting family PC sales,and with 120 dollars a barrel of oil, workers have to choose between food on the table, mortgage,children’s shoes or home utilities ,etc., one solution is to switch to solar,wind and fuel-cells to cut on utilities, switch to electric hybrid and ethanol E-85 cars and work trucks and so the family and the workers will have some extra cash to buy laptops and smart video-phones ( that is when LTE , WiMax ,etc.,finally gets going in 2050,whoaaaa! )
2) but will the politicians in Brussels and the EU capitals see it ? will they push a massive plan to re-set our Transportation and Home Energy Industry?
or will they keep their heads in the pockets of the Oil Lobby ? will they fight for the future of our culture ? naaaaaa! they will not and will suggest instead : conservation , borrow money from the Hedge-Funds ( they control the banks now like Deutsche Bank getting 20 billion dollars loans from the same Hedge-Funds that got D.B. into their mess with incompetent advice! ),call again the mayor responsible actor of the mess, Alan Greenspan, or call the Tooth Fairy for advice,in essence,the problem is deep because China and India may slow down a bit since they sell mostly to USA and EU, so the real problem is that we don’t have LEADERS, we don’t have strong men and woman to break through, we just don’t ! ,or are you ?
3) every kid and worker by now should have a laptop.org/ 100 euros laptop, with AMD,Google and Linux, and they don’t ! Intel and MS are working overtime to block any real distribution, any real launch, what a shortsighted view, and greedy too ! if workers and students make content and growth with this entry level laptop, they will upgrade to bigger machines, but they got to start somewhere….will Brussels and DC be there ? naaaa ! they are in Intel’s and MS pocket’s and we are going nowhere without the competition of AMD…….. kids and families don’t get help setting-up trading on stocks from home PC’s like in China, most young people don’t know anything about financial tools,nothing! just dumb TV and junk foods, so our Culture will collapse like this , but hey ! neocons and experts will do just fine, thank you very much !
4) on multi-cores and massive parallel processing, everybody is asking for software, for programs and programmers today , will Brussels and D.C. get the Universities going ? will they help with seed money ? i don’t even think they know about the critical need…
so the crisis is that politicians want to apply old solutions to new problems, when we need a total overhaul of the political landscape, total.
Posted by: blogger | April 17th, 2008 at 6:57 pm | Report this comment