Successful companies don’t usually pop in and out of losses on a quarterly basis, but Digital Equipment Corp chief executive Robert Palmer thinks the company is healthier than it has been in many years and he is optimistic about the future – I couldn’t be more optimistic, but in any particular quarter, anything could happen – to DEC perhaps, if not to the likes of Hewlett-Packard Co, Sun Microsystems Inc and Compaq Computer Corp. Morgan Stanley & Co analyst Steven Milunovich is not impressed, and has cut his fiscal 1997 and fiscal 1998 earnings estimates on DEC, citing currency issues and concerns about the growth of the company’s Alpha products. DEC’s revenue from its internet-related business, including the Alpha servers and Alta Vista software, brought in more than $1bn last year, according to Palmer.
