Sun's intra-quarter call confirmed the fairly grim picture of demand that we have been seeing,

It is a grim picture.

It's a grim picture, but it's exactly what we asked for.

While notable, this is still not enough to move the needle in a meaningful way as far as earnings -- and therefore stock performance -- is concerned.

While we are lowering our [fiscal 2003 earnings estimates] on lower revenue, we continue to believe there are cost savings-driven opportunities beyond the company's $2.5 billion target.

While our checks suggest that there was a general pickup in hardware business at the end of the March quarter, this was probably not sufficient for IBM to make our original revenue forecasts.