You seem to be unduly fixated on Maxtor's flaming out a few years back. They are back, at or near the top of the areal density race, and are a force to be reckoned with, IF they can solve their liquidity problems.
But if you insist on deriding bad decisions and bad management, why not focus on the current crop at Western Digital and Seagate? And let's not forget just a few short years back, when Quantum was awash in debt and trading at book.
These things go in cycles. If they didn't one of these guys would have long ago established leadership position. That's why the prudent course is to offload risk to manufacturers and suppliers, not to take the foolhardy and hubris-ridden risk of trying to squeeze every cent out of every component. It seriously doesn't work.
Hint: Any business plan that begins with, "Achieve dominant market share and leverage this position by integrating all value-added components of the food-chain through the strength of management's intellect, determination, and good looks..." is probably doomed. Are you listening, Al Shugart, Henry Silverman, Sandy Weill, et al??? |
