Laura Conigliaro Quotations

The postponement of Dell's analysts' meeting from April to September, while bound to create more uncertainty about the timing and scope of Dell's changing model, is probably a reality check on how much Dell needs to accomplish before it can feel confident about execution and results.

We have it ( IBM ) as a recommended list rating because, ironically, this currency change comes at a time when the fundamental picture is actually perhaps a little bit better than what we had been expecting,

Lexmark is clearly in the worst position among the major vendors,

Solaris has done very well as far as it being a leading Unix operating system for Sun, but how much attention has Solaris attracted outside of Sun? ... You could go through the other key software products and say the same thing.

More importantly, it appears that the December quarter will lack the seasonal punch that Sun and others normally see, suggesting that the first signs of a recovery may not come until June,

HP's fundamental earnings power highlights that this is more than just a restructuring story.

HP, in fact, could also be one of the causes, rather than the victims, of the miss, as it shifts more of its desktop business to AMD.

Over the last couple of quarters, very few companies have felt the combination of externally induced slowing amplified by some internal miscues the way Sun has.

reported a strong, high-quality quarter, with substantial upward revisions to both top and bottom lines.

Microelectronics remains one of the best parts of IBM and, we think, has an opportunity to continue to grow by at least 20 percent going forward, driven primarily by new design wins,

We have already seen some evidence of this?more than anything it has caused investors to start paying attention.

We show both revenue -- a little -- and margins -- more -- moving higher than current estimates, yielding a fair value of around $38 even without any multiple expansion.

We have continued to see evidence of gradual improvement for Sun in the marketplace.

While our checks suggest that there was a general pickup in hardware business at the end of the March quarter, this was probably not sufficient for IBM to make our original revenue forecasts.

While notable, this is still not enough to move the needle in a meaningful way as far as earnings -- and therefore stock performance -- is concerned.

With Sun's March quarter now over, our sense is that, while Sun's quarter ended on a strong note, revenues were likely sequentially flattish, probably with the slight bias toward the downside.

We watched the euro get significantly weaker over the last couple of weeks and that certainly has an impact on companies that don't have that much growth, but are very large and very exposed as IBM is internationally,

with likely upside in both cases, given a strong market opportunity and the company's growing dominance within it.

Notwithstanding the positive announcement ... our sense is that business conditions remain difficult for Sun thus far in the summer quarter.

They've been sending signals before. But it was smoke signals before. Now they are beating drums.

Although our evidence remains mostly anecdotal, we continue to see a macroeconomic environment that, if anything, is worse than even our cautious estimates have been suggesting,

There wasn't anything in the quarter in any product area that the company did not shine on.

They're in the process of turning it around, but I wouldn't hand them the keys to the kingdom just yet.

Sun's stock has already taken huge blows, is one of the better names in our group and should ultimately benefit from a strong product cycle and an expanding solutions approach, ... For now, however, we think the economic cycle probably has the upper hand.

Sun's intra-quarter call confirmed the fairly grim picture of demand that we have been seeing,

His answer was a crisp articulation of why they chose to slow down growth.

For the most part, Sun has tried to tone down some of those public statements and actions of that ilk. In general, Sun has taken more of a statesman-like position. As to whether they would do something like this or not, I have no idea.

You can't hand over the keys to the kingdom just yet -- but you can show him the box they come in. There are just so many changes that have taken place, in style and substance.

The likelihood of Dell hitting the high end of its 6 percent to 9 percent (revenue growth) target, which many investors, ourselves included, initially thought was an easy target to beat, is now much lower.