Thursday, June 06, 2002

IT Managers are increasing their IT spending CIO Magazine indicates that tech spending seems to be increasing. At least among the readers of CIO magazine.   3:29:31 PM     Sweaty Palms on Bloombergs I was talking with someone in my brockerage office about 20 minutes ago, and she was bemoaning the Intel news and was concerned for the market tomorrow. I made a light comment about it  and she came back very seriously with the big list: War in the mideast War in East Asia Terrorism Accounting Issues These issues were obviously very top of mind for her, and it's probably not unreasonable to extrapolate that she gets it from her environment. So the question is, if consumer confidience is up, if business confidence seems to be edging up slowly, very slowly, behind it, if people are spending and planning away, if employment is looking better and better, that would seem to indicate that most of the rest of the country is not consumed by these worries. Do the rest of us just have our head in the sand or is the financial community properly worried? 3:07:18 PM     English Please Your technology investing translation service changes this paragraph: "On Thursday, Intel said sales of microprocessors, which are used primarily in computers, are at the low end of a normal seasonal pattern with a weaker-than-expected mix. Enterprise, mobile and communications sales are as expected." To this: "Not only are we selling less than we thought we'd sell, but we're selling more cheaper chips and fewer expensive chips." The question is: Are their sales down because computer sales are down or because AMD, which is so much less expensive on a price/performance ratio, is taking serious share? 2:58:34 PM     Laugh of the day Brian O says: Why are companies making any money? Christopher M says: because they're not buying computers.... ha ha ha 2:53:25 PM     Buy a PC or the economy gets it Boy, a negative call on Intel (by Merrill Lynch, who I have a hard time extending any credibility to in the wake of the recent revelations) today and the markets go to hell. You'd think the entire economy -- or maybe its just the markets -- really depended on whether or not people are buying PCs. Tech is less than 10% of the economy, and the rest of the economy really seems to be pulling out of it. Great unemployment numbers this morning, ahead of tomorrow's big employment report. Oracle said it would make it's quarterly earnings number (no word on revenues, though) and the market shot up yesterday afternoon. I'm glad I don't trade for a living. The markets have been so hypersensitive and almost schizophrenic lately, interpreting what in normal times would be minor news in either direction as either a sign of the end of the world or a sign that everything is now fine. Granted, these aren’t normal times --  the combination of ‘weapons of mass destruction’ in the hands of terrorists and a little nuclear saber rattling in south Asia does make for a more tetchy business – hell, living --  environment than we’ve ever encountered before. But enough, already.... The poverty of dignity Friedman: If we've learned one thing since 9/11, it's that terrorism is not produced by the poverty of money. It's produced by the poverty of dignity. It is about young middle-class Arabs and Muslims feeling trapped in countries with too few good jobs and too few opportunities to realize their potential or shape their own future — and blaming America for it.     11:22:12 AM

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