We believe that Compaq also did a good job on the profitability front, which should enable operating margins to more than double from third-quarter levels ... this should lead to earnings-per-share at least several cents higher than the consensus First Call estimates of $0.16.

Slightly, to my mind, implies 3- to 5-percent growth. I think most people were looking at the 7- to 8-percent range for the fourth quarter.

The back half of the year looks like it will be better than expected.

I'm surprised it was this good, quite honestly. And more importantly the guidance for next year on the gross margin line of 57 percent. I think people are going to be very encouraged given that's up pretty substantially from what they did this last year.

It doesn't get a lot better than that, especially for a company that just hasn't been doing very well for the last year. It's going to be good for them tomorrow, and that should have a positive affect on a lot of the other chip makers, especially guys that are closely related. It will have generally a positive affect on the overall market.

Though we believe Dell can outperform the Nasdaq in 2000 after a poor 1999, we believe this can only happen after expectations have been reset to more reasonable levels. We believe downside on the stock is to the high $30s. We remain on the sidelines until then.

It's a disaster. They told us three months ago that Y2K isn't going to have any effect on them at all. They miss this quarter, now they're saying the next quarter is going to be even worse and that the first quarter will have even more losses.

Services are much more profitable than their core business.

The unit growth is not so strong as to offset the price declines they're seeing in their chips.