双语新闻：个人电脑销量预测的肮脏内幕

2014-08-14 12:22:16来源：可可英语

　　It’s even squishier than that, according to a former IDC researcher who spent eight years withthe company in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

　　而据一名IDC公司的前研究员称，销售预测比上面说的更不可靠。该研究员曾于20世纪90年代末至21世纪初在IDC工作了八年。

　　After I posted a story about the 77 million missing phones, he described in some detail how IDCgoes about estimating sales.

　　我发布了一篇关于“移动电话销量数据相差7700万台”的文章后，这名研究员给我透露了一些IDC公司如何进行销量预测的细节。

　　According to my source, who for legal reasons asked that his name not be used, here’s how itworked:

　　出于法律方面的考虑，这位线人要求匿名。他的讲述如下：

　　“Philip, I know something about this sausage-making process, as I used to do it for IDC. In3Q98, I did a cross-section, an excavation, if you like, of our methodology, putting a crowbarto it and snapping it into fragments. It was the PC count, but the methodology is the same forphones.

　　“菲利普，我曾在IDC公司从事销量预测，所以对其中的肮脏内幕有所了解。1998年第3季度，我对公司的方法论进行了一番深入挖掘。尽管我做的调查是有关个人电脑销量预测，但手机销量预测的方法论是一样的。 ”

　　“In most quarters, the team starts with OEM guidance and, depending on the country, doessome by-country cross-checking. However, for the US team, we just did some systematicadjustments to the vendor guidance and called it a day. For example, we knew that lots ofMacs were transshipped from Miami to Latin America. So, we took some percentage of Macs(Apple, of course, never helped; in fact, even objected, saying it wasn’t so) and reallocatedthem from the US to a smattering of Latin countries, effectively modeling the market but withno low-level data.

　　“在大部分季度，团队先以原始设备制造商的销量指引为基础，并根据国家的不同，按国别进行交叉检验。然而，对于美国市场，我们只对供应商的销量指引做些系统性的调整就算完事。比如，我们知道许多Mac电脑是通过迈阿密转运到拉丁美洲的。因此，我们将美国市场的Mac电脑销量减去一定比例(当然，苹果从来没有帮过忙;事实上该公司甚至反对这种做法，称实情并非如此)，由此得出来的销量就被安在几个拉美国家头上。这有效地模拟了市场状况，但缺乏底层数据支持。”

　　“So, in 3Q98, I analyzed the ‘choke points,’ those parts of the supply chain where thechannel narrowed enough to get a definitive count. At the time, it was OS, processor,graphics, and hard drive. As I recall, I found 20 million processors with no homes. The marketat the time was about 100 million, so this was a 20% discrepancy.

　　“因此，在1998年第3季度，我分析了‘瓶颈’，即供应链中渠道窄到足以得到最终数字的部分。当时，“瓶颈”是操作系统、处理器、显卡和硬盘驱动器。我记得，我发现多出了2000万台处理器销量。而当时的市场容量大概是1亿台，所以差额高达20%。”

　　“The process that ensued was a marvel of obfuscation. The leader of the Tracker team figuredout a way to rationalize away all the extra units (e.g., multiprocessor servers, inventory,speculation, etc.). It was politically impossible to force the extra units on the regions becauseit would introduce gross distortions to the historical trends.

　　“随后发生的事情简直堪称蒙混过关的典范。Tracker小组的组长想出了办法，让所有多出的处理器销量变得名正言顺(比如多处理器服务器、库存、投机炒作等)。但多出的销量强加到这些类目上会有大问题，因为这将严重扭曲历史趋势。 ”

　　“So, the mantra became, preserve the growth rates; to hell with the actual numbers. Even thegrowth rates are fiction. The fudge is in the “others” category, which is used as a plug tomake the numbers work out. In fairness, we did do survey work, calling around, and attendingwhite box conferences and venues to try to get a feel for that market, but in the end, theprocess was political. I used to tell customers which parts of the data they could trust,essentially the major vendors by form factor and region. The rest was garbage.

　　“所以，最后就成了保留增速数据，别管实际数字。而即便增长率数据其实也是瞎编。关键在于“其它”类目，每当有平不了的数据就往“其它”里塞。平心而论，我们确实做了调查工作，四处打电话，参加白盒测试会议与聚会，试图感受市场情况，但说到底，整个过程并不靠谱。我曾告诉客户他们能信任哪部分数据，基本上也就是各大厂商的形状因素和地区数据。其它数据都是垃圾。”

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