Hi Z
Now I just KNEW that you would rise to the bait, as you are one of the main advocates of spinning off DLT.
Some of what you write is certainly true, others I don't agree with.
First of all, there is an old but valid expression "nothing ventured, nothing gained". Some of the competition have been making music on the same old guitar until their fingures bled, and now they are bleeding up to the elbows
Shareholder Orientation
The industry has a poor PE tradition, due to its very poor history of meeting earnings projections I believe. But where has Mr Hagerty's "share holder orientation" got him? WDC's PE is 7,14 even after their poor earnings report. QNTM is at 11,21. APM is even at 4,49!.
I do agree with you that the DD industry is grossly undervalued, but the blame for this cannot, even in part, be attributed to MB. I believe that this will not change until QNTM looses the tag of being "just another DD manufacturer"
MR Transition
Ok it didn't go perfectly from the word go, neither did the Hubble telescope or the NASA space program, but it worked the second time, and was the right decision.
High End Drives
I believe the the entry into this business was the DEC aquisition, which was some 2 years ago. 2 years to achieve a turnaround is not much, and I believe that MB will either achieve it in the next year or cut his losses
Head Business
I don't know how long QNTM has been in the head biz, or how they even got into it. But MB correctly decided that it was not his core business and had the guts to get out of it. This as I see it was part of his strong trend away from vertical integration. Witness the MKE relationship for further proof of this.
DLT an accident?
will we ever know for sure? Becauce I see that most of MB's decisions were correct, Igive him the benefit of the doubt and call it farsightedness. Maybe DEC and DLT was a parallel of Bell Labs and the transistor, I sure hope so
In general, I think that MB is one of QNTM's biggest assets. Sure there are areas of the business that need attention, and I see these problems being addressed. After all, is there a company without ANY problems???
Regards
Alan |
