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Whither Wintel? Intel's Warned. Could Microsoft Be Next?

Whither Wintel? Intel's Warned. Could Microsoft Be Next?

Microsoft's reliance on PC sales could make it vulnerable to revenue shortfalls.

Microsoft's reliance on PC sales could make it vulnerable to revenue shortfalls.

Half of the mighty

Wintel

duo just warned that revenue will fall short of expectations because of slowing PC sales. Can the other half be far behind?

Intel

(INTC) - Get Free Report

, the "tel" in Wintel, on Thursday

said its fourth-quarter revenue won't reach expectations due to lethargic PC demand.

Microsoft

(MSFT) - Get Free Report

, meanwhile, is Wintel's other half. It makes the "Win" in Wintel,

Windows

software.

And analysts in recent days have begun worrying about Microsoft.

On Thursday, for instance,

Goldman Sachs

analyst

Rick Sherlund

issued a report cutting his sales and earnings estimates for Microsoft. For the second quarter ending Dec. 31, Sherlund reduced his revenue estimate by $125 million to $6.78 to $6.8 billion. He also cut his revenue estimate for the March quarter by $200 million and for the June quarter by $150 million. Sherlund's estimates for those quarters weren't available. On the earnings side, Sherlund reduced his fiscal 2001 estimate to $1.88 a share from $1.91. The company's fiscal year ends in May. (Goldman hasn't done recent underwriting for the company.)

Also on Thursday, Michael Stanek, an analyst at

Lehman Brothers

,

trimmed his 2001 earnings estimate to $1.88 a share from $1.91. He also slashed his revenue outlook by $630 million to $25.9 billion. (Lehman hasn't done recent underwriting for Microsoft.)

And at last week's

Credit Suisse First Boston

tech conference in Arizona, Microsoft Chief Financial Officer John Connors wondered if the downtrodden stock market would hurt consumer PC purchases this holiday season. Microsoft declined to comment for this story.

Beyond Intel, there's plenty of other evidence to point to problems for Microsoft, including recent warnings from

Gateway

undefined

and

Apple

(AAPL) - Get Free Report

, both of which cited weak PC sales.

Microsoft is considered vulnerable because it depends so much on PCs. A full 70% of its revenue is still related to PC desktops, said Chris Shilakes, a

Merrill Lynch

analyst. (Merrill hasn't done recent underwriting for the company.) But Goldman's Sherlund estimates that consumer PC sales account for only about 10% of Microsoft's total revenue, and it's consumer PC sales that are hurting the most. Yet it may only take that 10% to cause Microsoft to tag along with Intel.