We believe the comments on PC demand add weight to the view that the PC cycle may have bottomed. However, we believe it is still too early to 'call the bottom' -- especially if emerging weakness in European IT demand dampens prospects for a PC rebound there. |
We believe there could be a shakeout in the B2C (business-to-consumer) online retailing sector as companies that have had to spend aggressively to gain new customers will be running out of money. |
We can imagine an aggressive case calling for $2.7 billion of revenue by 2005 and $2.34 in earnings per share. |
We contend AOL Time Warner is powerful enough that it won't go gently into the night (unlike Novell, WordPerfect, Lotus, Netscape, et al). We do believe, however, that developments between the two companies over the next year or two will have significant bearing on the long-term direction of the industry. |
We continue to believe in the long-term growth of online advertising. Near-term, however, we don't believe the market will bottom until the first quarter. We estimate only single-digit year-over-year market growth in the first quarter. |
We continue to believe that the first quarter will be the toughest quarter for online advertising. We expect market growth of only 10 percent year-over-year. We believe growth will then accelerate modestly through the year. |
We continue to believe that there is no legal or competitive justification for blocking the deal. |
We continue to believe Yahoo! will make a good long-term investment. As a result of the challenging advertising environment, however, we believe the stock could see significant downside in the next three to six months. |
We continue to think some upside is possible to these estimates, despite weakness in the online advertising market. We are not looking for as much upside as in the past, however. |
We continue to think there is long-term upside potential for the stocks of the leading companies in the Internet sector. Although we acknowledge the potential for appreciation over the intermediate term, we strongly believe that volatility remains a significant risk over this same timeframe and we would stress the long term. |
We continue to view [Office XP] as a 'nice-to-have,' not a 'must-have,' especially in a weak economy. We have therefore baked only modest impact from the launch into our estimates. |
We continue to view OXP as a 'nice-to-have,' not a 'must-have,' especially in a weak economy. We have therefore baked only modest impact from the launch into our estimates. |
We do not expect significant upside to our estimates. As we have said before, we believe the company is going through an awkward transition from a hyper-growth, revenue momentum story to a long-term growth and earnings story. Despite its growing pains, we continue to believe long-term, patient investors will be rewarded. |
We expect the challenging environment for online advertising to continue into the second quarter 2001, three-to-six months longer than we had originally expected. Because of this, we are not able to raise our bottom line estimates. |
We have received a number of calls on whether a combination of Yahoo and Disney would make sense. We believe an investment would be much more likely. Given that AOL-Time Warner is likely to be a real entity within a few weeks, creating a very strong global integrated media and Internet competitor, we believe other media companies will be looking to create similarly powerful internet strategies. |