Is the whole world going downhill, or is it just me?

One of the key skills of an analyst, when noticing some important ups or downs in the results of a competitor, is trying to decide whether these anomalies pertain just to that vendor, to a particular pocket or two in the market, or to the entire market.

Take the current economic uncertainty. The key question everyone wants answered is: how is it affecting IT spending?

The analyst firms such as Gartner and IDC conduct market research to find out about buying intentions, and these certainly give some indication of what's going on, but most of the time it's inconclusive. If the result is that anywhere between 20% and 45% say they are increasing their spending, 20-45% say they are decreasing their spending, and 20-40% say "No change in plans"—which is typically what you get from these surveys—then it's very difficult to claim that a new trend is afoot.

Another source of IT spending data comes from government statistics and Gartner/IDC trackers, but these tend to arrive rather late on the scene.

No, if you want hard data on the market, the earliest reliable material tends to come from the quarterly vendor financial results.

Last night, Dell published its results. Profits were down 17%, but revenue was up 11%. Sadly Dell didn't publish a constant-currency growth figure, so that will have to be estimated. However Dell did say that the earnings squeeze was a result of technology spending slowdowns and its expansion into Europe and Asia.

But is Dell telling the truth? Some watchers clearly think so: the chief investment officer at Solaris Asset Management, said: "[Dell is] saying lower IT spending is spreading. That is evidence of a global slowdown in IT spending. This certainly isn't good news for tech overall."

Personally, I believe the guy is being too hasty in jumping to this conclusion. We need to see several more sets of results from other vendors before we can confirm the conclusion. There has been a tendency in previous IT recessions for customers to stick with trusted brands. But is Dell trusted today? Dell is still in recovery, so there are a number of factors influencing its financial results.

So it may be just Dell. We need to see the results of many more vendors. In this instance, you cannot see the world in a grain of sand.