As the conference unfolded, indications differed rather dramatically depending on who was doing the talking. With that backdrop, it seemed only logical that Compaq executives would spend their allotted time at the conference not talking about the PC business. Instead, the Houston company sent down Mary McDowell, senior vice president of its industry standard servers group, to talk about the prospects for selling servers. McDowell said that Compaq also plans to expand its offerings of single-purpose appliances for companies looking to simplify the way they control Internet operations. Another hot area McDowell discussed was the market for more-compact servers.
Carriers are nervous.
Systems houses are nervous. Nervous and quick to sell, that is. The stock took a beating in late January, however, when Corning said that it expected growth in 2001 to slow down. In a Monday address to investors, Loose talked about how that growth is expected to play out. It seemed the audience liked what they heard.