Firstenegy---Peter (slow)
Corporate computing and enterprise server market
Interview: AMERICAN TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH---Whittington, Rick--- Analyst
>> a government report concludes that problems at an ohio utility led to last august’s blackout in the u.s. and canada. peter cook joins us live from washington with more on the blackout report.
>> a joint u.s. and canadian investigation concludes that problems at firstenergy corporation triggered the outage that left 50 million in the dark last august. energy secretary spencer abraham and his canadian counterpart released the report in washington. they stressed it is preliminary and after a period of public comment, the task force will release a final recommendation. the 134-page document makes clear that firstenergi’s conduct is at the center of the investigation. among the findings, the company’s failure to monitor its system and keep trees from power lines started the cascade of events. firstenergy also failed to stabilize its system and warn other utilities of its problems, which could have kept the outage from spreading. the midwest independent system operator, overseeing much of the midwest grid, should have been keeping track of firstenergi’s system, did not have all of its systems operating property. in all of the reports, firstenergy committed four violations and miso committed two. but the investigation does not conclude what punishment might be forthcoming.
>> we believe a variety of reliability standards were not observed. the consequences of that, because there aren’t enforceable standards in place today, which we have been pushing for for a number of years, limits the extend under which there are actions available under federal law.
>> abraham says it’s possible that federal and state regulators could take action once the report is finalize and energy attorneys say class action lawsuits are likely, as well. in a statement just released, firstenergy is challenging the report. firstenergy president and c.e.o. anthony alexander saying “we believe that the interim report does not adequately address the underlying causes of the outage by focusing on a few selected events and that the conclusions do not address the complexity of the interactions on the electric grid.” the energy bill currently facing a final vote in the senate as early as tonight would make the current rules mandatory and enforceable for the first time.
>> firstenergy shares were down 2% in regular trade today. $3.29 was the -- $33.29, the close on wall street. the company saying they do not believe they’re the sole source of blame for that sweeping blackout. moving along here, the world’s biggest computer chipmaker will host its fall analyst meeting in new york city tomorrow. shares of intel have climbed more than 100% since the beginning of the year and joining us to look at what may be on the agenda and the outlook for intel is rick whittington, director of research and an analyst at american technology research. and he’s joining us live from stanford, connecticut. mr. whitington, i’m not an analyst and i’m not invited to these meetings. but what do you expect to hear tomorrow that intel might tell a group of guys like you exclusively?%
>> i think they’ll tell us that the long-awaited p.c. recovery is here. i think that they’ll tell us that their notebook mobile computing initiative, centrino, wireless connectivity is very robust worldwide. i think they’re going to give us the first inkling of recovery in the european p.c. market, also and i think they’re going to tell us that the server, corporate computing and enterprise server market is starting to brighten up for 2004.
>> that sounds like a christmas wish list, right? if you don’t hear that, will you be concerned?
>> no, there’s a lot of evidence. you saw the hewlett-packard numbers tonight. there’s a tremendous amount of evidence that a major cyclical recovery is taking place in technology right now. intel is at the front of the wave. they’re benefiting and making it happen with a lot of interesting new products.
>> do you ever of worry about, with intel, what do they call it, intellectual property, we would call it counterfeiters, obviously, they’re coming up with new and better chips but is counterfeiting a concern, especially with the growth of chinese-made chips?
>> 10 or 15 years ago that was more of a concern than today. most of the countries we trade with abide by the rules now. so that’s not really an issue for investors right now u.talk to me about the business. how do you think intel generally is doing right now? are they seeing overall better p.c. growth than you expected or pretty much in line with expectations? we have 30 seconds.
>> they had an explosive third quarter and i think they’ll have another above-expectation fourth quarter and when they get around to talking about 2004, they’ll say p.c.’s are back. the forecasters were much too conservative this past year. there’s a lot of pent-up demand and many new interesting new products that consumers and businesses are buying like hotcakes.
>> how much higher will intel go in the next 12 months?
>> as much as it’s gone up over the last 12 months.%
>> another double. you heard it there, rick whittington, we’ll have him back next december if he’s right. after hewlett-packard said its profit more than doubled, another double, we’ll go to tokyo and see how h.p.’s earnings will impact the computer companies in that part of the world when they start trading in about two hours from now.
