One thing I wonder if everyone could put their heads together on is to guestimate how large of a market there potentially is for KM. We know that MR heads are not currently a candidate for KM, and in fact couldn't be for several years, and some current predictions are for MR to totally overtake inductive heads in a few years, maybe even 3 years according to Disk/Trend!, quoted in June 96 Byte article on Drives,if inductive heads don't make some quick improvements to keep ahead of the cost/efficiency curve first. It seems that KM is another straw to keep inductive heads in the game for some extra lives. What I wonder is,
-- How large is the total disk drive market? 60-80M this year worldwide this year? What about 97 predictions, when KM could be used?
-- Of that number, what percentage, and what amount, is already devoted to MR? I think that IBM does nothing other than MR now, even tho it's more expensive to date than inductive, they're that committed to it as the longer term solution. Who is locked into MR so far?
Would appreciate peoples input on these 2 questions. It can help us gauge how big of a market AXC is potentially looking at.
From a guy who rode it from the 4's to 15's and got out in the 9's, but who is very tempted to jump back in again. |
