NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - After Applied Materials's stinker of an earnings report, it's hard to imagine how Dell Computer can lift technology investors' spirits.

Applied Materials, the largest chip equipment manufacturer, missed earnings estimates for its fiscal first quarter Tuesday and gave uninspiring guidance for its second quarter. (For more about AMAT, click here.)

So now all eyes turn to Dell, the second-largest PC maker, which reports its fiscal fourth-quarter and full-year results Thursday. Even though it should post strong quarterly results, with earnings per share expected to increase 44 percent to 23 cents and sales to be up 20 percent to $9.7 billion, there are increasing concerns that Dell will not give a bright outlook for its current quarter.

Analysts are projecting earnings per share of 23 cents, up from 17 cents a year ago, and revenue of $9.5 billion, compared with $8.1 billion last year. But Walter Winnitzki, an analyst with First Albany, thinks that most analysts have yet to factor in seasonality, namely that the first quarter is typically weak for Dell and other PC manufacturers.

Winnitzki says it's unreasonable to expect Dell to post earnings that are flat with its fiscal fourth quarter -- especially in this environment. As a result, he thinks that Dell may tell Wall Street to expect earnings per share of 21-to-22 cents in the first quarter. His current estimate is for 22 cents.

Winnitzki does not own shares of Dell and First Albany has no investment banking relationship with the company.

In all likelihood, Dell will cite market share gains and cost-cutting as the driving force behind its continued sales and earnings gains -- and not a pickup in demand for technology in general.

In this respect, Dell's comments will probably bear a close resemblance to those issued by Cisco Systems last week. Cisco (CSCO: down $0.27 to $13.20, Research, Estimates) reported better-than-expected earnings but said that sales for this quarter could be lower than expected.

Eric Ross, an analyst with Investec, says that the best that investors can hope to hear is that pricing for PCs is remaining relatively stable, since demand will probably remain weak. Even though Dell is widely recognized as the most efficient of PC makers, and thus is able to wring the most profits out of its sales, a prolonged price war in PCs could lower profit margins.

To that end, Dell's main rival, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ: down $0.23 to $16.62, Research, Estimates), announced Wednesday that it was cutting the prices of PCs in Japan by as much as 27 percent.

Still, Barry Mills, a hardware analyst with mutual fund company Dreyfus, says that Dell's prospects for this year continue to look solid. Despite the near-term spending concerns, Mills says that Dell should benefit from a replacement cycle as many corporate customers could get rid of older computers that they've had for nearly four years. (Companies typically tend to replace computers every three years or so.)

Ross adds that PCs will not be the only focus either. He says investors will be interested in seeing how much market share Dell is gaining in some newer business lines, such as servers, storage and switches, since they are higher margin businesses than the cutthroat PC business. Ross does not own shares of Dell and Investec does not do investment banking for the company.

Dell's relatively clean balance sheet is a big plus as well. The company has $4.3 billion in cash and just $514 million in debt. For this reason, Mills thinks that Dell (DELL: down $0.27 to $22.97, Research, Estimates) might face more pressure to pay a dividend. In fact, wireless technology company Qualcomm announced Tuesday that it will begin paying a dividend in March. Microsoft also will begin paying a dividend in March.

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"If you are a big company and you dominate your industry and generate a lot of cash you should share it with investors," said Mills. However, Mills doesn't expect the company to make a dividend announcement in conjunction with its latest earnings report. Dreyfus owns shares of Dell in several of its funds.

And Mills says that Dell, now trading at about 23.5 times earnings estimates for this fiscal year, which ends in January 2004, is a more rational entry point for the stock than it has tended to trade at. "What do you pay for a company that's in a bad industry but is growing earnings nicely? This level seems reasonable," Mills said.