Tom Sweet
Analyst · JPMorgan. Please go ahead.
Sure, Tom. Hey, so look, we did tell you I think back in Q1 when we did this call that the sequential jump in component costs from Q1 to Q2 was relatively significant. And as we look forward, we still think memory costs will be a headwind through the year, although we do think that Q2 to Q3, the sequential jump will be significantly less than what we saw in Q2. But that's obviously going to be a headwind. But having said that, look, I mean, we haven't been static about what we're doing in the sense of managing configuration. We have adjusted price a number of times, as we balance both list price moves and our overall discounting framework that we've used, particularly in our Commercial base. And I would tell you that in general, we've seen reasonably good success sort of navigating through this. It's obviously not perfect. And in general, what we have seen is a gradual mitigation of the component cost environment. Now the question is as you go forward is balancing that, those pricing actions and component, our configuration actions that you're doing and trying to balance that growth velocity with profitability. And so it's a careful balance here because as you know, Tom, we're a believer in premium growth to the market, and you've got to be careful around making sure that as you adjust prices appropriately, you're not somehow stymieing demand. And so it's been a balance that way. I think the team's done a pretty good job, particularly in the client and in the server space sort of navigating through that. There's more work to do, so I want to tell you that we've been perfect in that execution, particularly as I look at the server business, I think that there's an opportunity to continue to adjust, and we're pleased with the performance so far that we're seeing early in Q3 in that area. Also, as you think about some of these storage and server space, particularly, you get a bit more lag in terms of how effective the price moves are given some of the longer nature of the contracts. And so price moves further in over a bit longer time frame, particularly in the datacenter space. So all in all, look, I think the team's done a pretty reasonable job. We'll see how the environment migrates over the next couple of quarters and on into next year. And we're continuing to manage to drive both velocity of the business, as well as margin dollars. So that's the balance we're trying to thread right now.