Word: indexers
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Indeed, Carl Howe of Forrester Research believes the Internet has helped Apple make headway in the platform wars. "I think Apple doubling its market share is entirely possible," he says, citing a Forrester report that shows Apple had the highest satisfaction and buying index among large companies in North America. The premium they paid to own an Apple (one that is now shrinking) didn't seem to matter much. "Price is the last refuge of the marketer. It's what you sell when you don't have anything else to differentiate you," says Howe. "If prices were all that...
...least start receding very soon. Another report on manufacturing from the National Association of Purchasing Managers - which now wants to be known as the slightly Orwellian-sounding Institute of Supply Management - announced that the sector's monthly contractions got smaller again in December, pushing the group's index to 48.2 from 44.5 in November. Which is almost 50, which is almost an expansion again. And the "new orders" component for the month, the most forward-looking part of the report, actually rose above that crucial halfway point. And semiconductors, the commodity to watch for tech's 2002 fortunes, also...
...that's but a small piece of October's 12.5 percent hike, and when you take out declining defense orders (the war is slowing down a bit) domestic-front orders of heavy equipment, appliances, and the like were up 2.7 percent. And even the manufacturing-gauging Chicago Purchasing Managers Index edged up a smidge to 41.4 from 41.1. That's two straight months of rising PMI and non-defense durables orders, which bodes well for December, which bodes well for the recovery, because it won't really get going until manufacturers start making capital investments again...
...consumer confidence - oh, consumer confidence. In the day's real headliner, the Conference Board reported that its consumer confidence index staged a whopping advance to 93.7 in December, up nearly 10 points from a revised 84.9 in November and about the same amount more than forecasters were expecting...
...index compiled by U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray sank 95% in the two years following its peak in December 1999. Meanwhile, though, business executives have quietly kept their modems switched on. In a survey early this year of 686 large and mid-size companies, AMR Research of Boston found that about one-third were using some form of online exchange. Another third expected to get involved in the next few years. The businesses investing most heavily in B2B were the largest ones, with the clout to compel smaller partners to follow them into cyberspace. Says AMR's John Bermudez: "Companies have...