Could printers make or break Hewlett-Packards ability to meet first-quarter expectations?
That’s the question the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company will answer Thursday when it releases fiscal first-quarter results. But some analysts are concerned HP could miss estimates–for the second straight quarter–and again lower growth projections. The company missed fiscal fourth-quarter projections by a dime. “It’s hard to believe HP will deliver good news,” Technology Business Research analyst Humberto Andrade said. Printers are one of the big concerns. Imaging products accounted for more than 40 percent of HP’s fiscal 2000 revenue and about 71 percent of its operating income. But industrywide printer sales ran aground last year, IDC analyst Angele Boyd said, and the outlook isn’t thrilling. “The printer market was terrible in 2000,” she said. Unfortunately for HP, other concerns exist as well. The company saw a decline in server market share in the United States, according to a recent Gartner study. And analysts say that sales of Superdome, the company’s high-end Unix server, may
