055《经济学家》读译参考之五十五不进则退-知名PC公司举步维艰.docVIP

TEXT 55 Evolve or die 不进则退（陈继龙 编译） Jul 27th 2006 From The Economist print edition （1）THE personal computer spawned[1] a new industry. But many of the firms that initially flourished in the PC era are now finding life difficult. Dell, the leading PC-maker, issued a profit warning last week that sent its share-price to a five-year low. Intel is trying to regain ground lost to AMD, its increasingly confident competitor. Microsoft has just announced that it will buy back 8% of its shares for around $20 billion—a sign that its high-growth days are behind it. 个人计算机（PC）造就了一个新产业。然而，众多最初在PC时代兴盛一时的公司如今却发现举步维艰。头号PC制造商戴尔公司上周发布了一则利润警报，造成其股价跌至五年来最低水平。因特尔也在设法夺回被其信心与日俱增的对手——AMD所占领的市场。微软则刚刚宣布将以200亿美元左右的价格回购其8%的股份——这意味着它曾经的高速增长时代已成过眼烟云。 （2）But none of these firms is in mortal danger. That is more than can be said for many of the smaller firms of a similar vintage[2] to the PC. Novells two top executives departed in June following a string of poor results. Silicon Graphics filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in May. 3Com replaced its boss earlier this year following lacklustre[3] performance. Borland shed one-fifth of its workforce and is preparing to sell the best-known part of its business; this month its finance chief r_______①. 不过，这些公司还没有哪一家面临灭顶之灾，而许多同期开始生产PC的小公司就说不准了。Novell公司的两位最高执行官由于一连串糟糕的业绩已于6月份离职。硅谷制图公司则于5月份申请了《破产法》第11章规定的破产保护。3Com公司的老总也因无出众成绩而于今年早些时候被免职。Borland公司则裁减了五分之一的员工，并拟转让公司部分知名业务；其财务主管也已在这个月辞职。 All four firms are c_______② of the IBM PC, the creatures of a distant era when only around 200 institutions were connected to the internet. （3）Each had a bold vision of technology, but then failed to evolve as the very innovations they pioneered became commonplace. 这四家公司与IBM个人计算机均处于同一时代，都出自那个久远的年代——当时只有200家左右的公共机构接通了互联网。在技术上，它们个个都曾有着大胆的洞察力，可当它们开创的新技术广为应用时，自己却止步不前了。 Novell prospered by selling networking software to link up computers and enable group-working. Yet the firm failed to keep up with its rivals, c_______③ Microsoft and IBM. It then shifted strategy and acqui