We may have hit bottom in Asia but it may not get better anytime soon.

The growth rate in the enterprise resource planning applications market is coming down from 60 percent to 40 percent.

It's a way for Microsoft to leverage the investment they've already made in this technology. I don't know if this move is to appease banks. It's more to allow Microsoft to generate revenue.

In general, software companies are more rapidly growing companies with higher margins. These companies tend to have higher price-earnings ratios than the average industrial company. They have farther to fall when people start getting worried.

Microsoft needs to defend its turf. If Microsoft turns its back, it could be in a situation where the PC becomes irrelevant. It's important for Microsoft to defuse the situation.

People have been on H-P for a while about not being able to generate rapid enough revenue growth, and it's a huge, diversified company -- do we need all these unrelated pieces? And I think by separating away the test and measurement business and the medical stuff, they can focus more clearly on their core strength, and that's the computers and imaging products.

The PC stocks should do well in the second half of this year.

They really need to stimulate that top-line growth and I think this is the first step toward doing that.

Compaq, for example, had too much product and slowed down the rate at which they built new machines.