Tim, I guess I was referring to just the DRAM industry.
You're absolutely right in saying that changing the product portfolio was definitely an option, and not aggressively pushing into more proprietary products has hurt. I don't know if exiting DRAM entirely was a realistic option because if we're talking fall of 1995, I don't know what else they had out there that they could shift into. And then on the flipside, maybe they're thinking "hey, we're the best a cutting costs, we're low-cost producer, that's how you win here, so no we're still in there." And maybe the mistake is the failure to assess, as you did, the barriers to entry based on capital (very high) and barriers to entry based on technological issues (memory chips = relatively low) and the competitive implications? Don't know.
That's sort of why I've always liked the management decisions by TXN and NSM a lot more than MU <g>
Good trading,
Tom |
