PALO ALTO, Calif. (CNN/Money) - Intel held a briefing for analysts last week. When done well, these gabfests offer not only a broad take on the company, but also on the competition.

Consider the following report from Merrill Lynch analyst Joe Osha, who walked away from the Intel briefing worrying about Sun Microsystems (SUNW: Research, Estimates), the embattled computer server maker that has pursued an independent software and semiconductor strategy for years:

"One of the day's most interesting moments came when Intel singled out Sun Microsystems for a competitive comparison. Intel claims that by the time it has the updated implementation of its IA-64 architecture [Intel's next-generation chip, known as Itanium and co-developed with Hewlett Packard], ... it will be in a position to offer a 48 percent performance premium over a comparable Sun system for substantially lower cost.

"Intel also quoted a third-party study that shows IA-32 based systems [Intel's older-generation chip] at 30 percent ahead of comparable Sun systems for only 20 percent of the cost. It is hard to evaluate the veracity of Intel's IA-64 claims yet, but it is true that Intel has made competitive headway against Sun with IA-32. At any rate, there seems little doubt that Sun now shares a spot in Intel's competitive crosshairs that previously belonged exclusively to AMD."

For a sobering reflection on Osha's concluding statement, Sun shareholders might consider this long-term price chart that compares the share prices of AMD and Intel.

A particularly nasty e-mail arrived after a column here on April Fool's Day about the Houston firm Seitel, which had just announced a massive re-statement of revenues.

The letter writer, an employee of Arthur Andersen, lambasted me for failing to note that Seitel's accountant firm is Ernst & Young. He suggested that if the auditor responsible for the big miss had been Andersen, I would have jumped all over it.

He's right, I surely would have flagged such a fact. That's because trends are worth noting. And the trend of Waste Management, Sunbeam and Enron -- all of which ran into trouble under Andersen's watch -- may help explain why the Justice Department has such a bee in its bonnet for Andersen. It needs to be said over and over: What's happening to Andersenites who've never even flown through the Houston airport is really sad. Tragic, even. But their firm has a history of problems. That's a fact.

But get this. It turns out Andersen was Seitel's auditor. Andersen signed Seitel's 1999 10-K on Feb. 25, 2000, giving an unqualified opinion on Seitel's books. By the following year, Ernst & Young was on the case, also blessing Seitel's books.

According to a Dec. 7, 2000, filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, Seitel replaced Andersen a week earlier. However, "Seitel and Arthur Andersen did not have any disagreement on any matter of accounting principles or practices, financial statement disclosure or auditing scope or procedure," according to the filing.

As for Seitel (SEI: up $0.18 to $8.23, Research, Estimates), whose executives are now being sued by shareholders over the way its CEO was compensated (according to revenues, don'tcha know), its stock is down 14 percent since the re-statement announcement.

Here's an easy rule of thumb for being linguistically and culturally sensitive: If it's possible a term might offend, use another.

To wit, I'm alerted that the extremely commonly used term "Chinese Wall" is offensive to many folks in the financial and legal worlds who are of Chinese ancestry.

This is a complex one. On Wall Street, the Chinese Wall refers to the division between an investment banking division and the research division, and comes from the Great Wall, one of China's great accomplishments. No matter.

The expression isn't even accurate, of course, because the Great Wall is supposedly impregnable. Migration from the research side to the investment banking side of Wall Street brokerages, for example, happens all the time. Seems like it'd just be easier to say "ethical wall" or "firewall." What do you think?

As we wait for the judge's ruling in Delaware, a thought occurs about Walter Hewlett's case against Hewlett Packard's (HWP: Research, Estimates) proposed merger with Compaq, covered in this space last week.

One of Walter Hewlett's major contentions was that the "value-capture" reports prepared by HP's integration team were tantamount to detailed financial forecasts and that the reports showed a deteriorating -- and undisclosed -- situation inside the company.

RECENTLY BY ADAM LASHINSKY       Lessons from the HP trial The market votes Yes on HP Another nail in the PC's coffin

For interpretation of those reports, however, the court heard only from HP CEO Carly Fiorina, HP CFO Bob Wayman, Compaq CFO Jeff Clarke (the top finance person on the integration team), and Phil Condit, the CEO of Boeing and a Fiorina-supporting HP board member.

Why didn't Hewlett's lawyers call an ex-McKinsey or ex-Bain consultant to give expert testimony that the company's representation of the reports was wrong? Is it because the legal team didn't think of that or because no consultant could be found who'd say such a thing?

Adam Lashinsky is a senior writer for Fortune magazine. Send e-mail to Adam at adam_lashinsky@timeinc.com.

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