The Intel numbers were actually in line with the whisper numbers, so the content is not so surprising, but the context is excellent, when you look at what happened in the quarter.

How these companies sound isn't a terribly good basis for investing right now, ... The fact is that in an incremental cyclical recovery, capital spending will recover at a brisker pace than the overall recovery, and technology spending will recover at a faster rate than capital spending.

Linux promises to fulfill the promise made by Unix a decade ago -- a truly cheap, powerful and entirely open computing architecture, ... Sun is digging in its heels fighting the trend. As a result, no self-respecting CIO will say she or he wants to do more business with Sun.

The first focus for companies is reducing operating costs, squeezing the most out of your employees and restraining headcount.

[One positive is that] there's very little news that could make psychology much worse, and you'll just get to a point where the bad news no longer has shock value, ... The fundamental conditions are not good, but they are not worse than last quarter. We won't have that disappointing a quarter. The growth of tech is about to turn positive.

Here we are seven days into the new quarter, and the pre-announcement season has been extremely mild,