HP CEO Mark Hurd told a Sanford Bernstein conference in New York Thursday that he's not ready to call a bottom or even speculate on the timing of a breakout, when the bubble of pent-up demand created by four-year-old desktops, notebooks, and servers will burst.

He was pretty much repeating his position of last week when HP reported a 17% drop in fiscal Q2 earnings and a 3% decline in sales.

Like Dell, Hurd has seen some positive signs in the U.S. and China but he needs more markets to show an uptick.

The fact that IDC said Thursday that HP had gained share in servers could be interpreted as a sign that IT spending is still floundering.

According to the Wall Street Journal, he said, "We haven't been pricing to gain share so the good news is we're gaining share, but the bad news is we're gaining share, which tells me the market is not as strong as we predicted in some of our markets."

Europe is soft and Hurd thinks it may get softer.

In fact Reuters reports that HP is preparing to cut 5,700 jobs in EMEA over the next two years, partially in response to its plans, announced last week, to cut 6,400 people worldwide and partially out of the region's particular weakness.

It's also planning to move enterprise, storage and server production out of Germany and Scotland to a partner in the Czech Republic next year, the wire service said.