No Sinking Feeling

Joseph Huang, general manager at Fortron/Source Technology, a Chino, Calif.-based vendor of standard and custom-built switching power supplies, has two containers currently stuck at the port. "But the good news is, for this quarter, the economy is not so good," he said. "Stuff is moving more slowly [than normal, so we have some stock."

Unlike the automotive industry, which keeps inventory to the absolute minimum, vendors and distributors of commodity IT equipment,which is shipped from Asia in ship-borne containers,said they believe they have enough stock on hand to last until their containers finally arrive, even if it takes the next one to two months to clear the port backlogs.

D&H Distributing keeps about 45 days' worth of goods in stock, and vendors have two to four weeks' worth, said Michael Schwab, vice president of purchasing at the Harrisburg, Pa.-based distributor. The company has 15 to 20 containers full of cases and monitors waiting to enter the country, he said.

"If people are not hoarding product, the channel at this exact moment should have enough supply for the next 30 days," Schwab said.

Dell Computer Chairman and CEO Michael Dell said the dock strike did not impact his company.

"We anticipated it was going to happen, and we had built up some inventory in our supplier hub," he said. "I'm not going to say there are no issues, but I think we've been able to manage those really well."

Shortages of certain brands of CD-RW drives and monitors for desktop PCs are already evident, said Steven Manteros, general manager of GST/Micro City, a Cerritos, Calif.-based white-box solution provider.

There are substitutes for such products, Manteros said, but he expects some prices to rise.

"It's really a question of supply and demand," he said. "That's normal. We have to look at the worst-case scenario."