By editorial@silicon.com, 9 November 2000 17:53
NEWS Its share price fell to $95.5 on the Instinet electronic brokers system against a closing price of $100 yesterday. The fall was triggered by chairman and CEO Louis Gerstner's Wednesday announcement that sales growth was likely to be in single figures. Tony Lock, senior analyst at Bloor Research, was sanguine about the revised sales forecast. "IBM's still making a profit, which is pretty unusual in the IT business right now," he said. "I'd say to investors that this is nothing to worry about for the moment - unless it keeps happening." IBM's share price may also have been hit by the disclosure by Sam Palmisano, IBM president and chief operating officer, that IBM will be unable to meet delivery targets for its latest zSeries 900 enterprise server. But Lock advises investors to stay calm. "Forecasting mainframe demand isn't easy - even five more orders than you expected is a big production hit," said Lock. "You can't just churn them out like you can with an AS/400." By Candice Goodwin
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