There is also new competition as surplus hardware from bankrupt dot com firms floods the North American market. Naturally, this results in talk of a big shakeout among PC makers. The obvious initial victims are the local corner store IBM clone dealers, who buy their components from various suppliers, assemble the PC in the back of the shop and sell it to you. While some pundits have printed up a tag for the big toe of these shops for some time, I'm not so sure they are in that much trouble. For the most part, the independent clone shop owners are pretty smart buyers, sell on a cash basis as much as possible, and have very low overhead.
Customers are loyal, too and their service departments make money.
Meanwhile, the big boys are singing a different tune. Compaq recently announced a 7 per cent workforce reduction while Intel, AMD, Dell, Gateway, Motorola and Apple are all predicting tough times for hardware sales. Gerstner is shaking his head and whistling softly when he sees the results of his PC sales force. Who knows but since I am here in the gambling city of Las Vegas, I decided to evaluate the big companies and establish some survival odds. After all, this is a city where you can bet on everything from how long the national anthem for the Superbowl will last to who is next to get kicked out of the Australian Outback.