Rob,
Yes, I've read some of their exchanges. On the one hand, I do think MBA has allowed his/her anger at SEG to cloud his/her judgement. On the other hand, like MBA, I cannot understand why they haven't announced a 10 gig product yet (they were, I think, confusing 10k with 10 gig over there, but I'm not entirely certain since I haven't actually read all of the posts). I am concerned, but I still think that at some point they will remedy this either
(a) by buying someone (I think Maxtor but who knows, maybe HDD, I can't see anyone else except perhaps Fujitsu and maybe this is why Larry Sanders quit but this is all ENTIRELY speculation on my part) at some point in the next 4-6 months, and fix their desktop that way, so they don't really care if they miss out on 10 gig products or not, since anything they do there will be duplicated by whoever they buy and they want to really focus on the very low end and the enterprise sector where they think rightly or wrongly they have the greatest competitive advantage. They will buy someone when they either get their own stock price up into the 50s or, preferably, the 60s, or they get the go ahead to sell more Veritas stock to get a couple of billion dollars in cash so that they can offer a cash/stock deal, or have enough cash on hand to buy their own stock to eliminate dilution, rather like QNTM did when they bought ATL and Meridian;
or
(b) they are planning to do what others have done with some success before which is leapfrog the 10 gig generation and go onto the next generation so that they can be first there and qual those drives, catching up that way, cause they sure aren't catching up the way they are going.
All that said, they have too many financial resources right now to be in real trouble unless their top management is really dropping the ball which is always possible but I just don't see how they could do such brilliant deals like the Seagate Software/Veritas deal and completely drop the ball in the drive arena. They would be hurt if there was a sharp tech stock drop before they could convert some of their holdings (especially of course Veritas) into cash, one way or another. But at least right now, I don't see that happening, but of course no one actually sees it happening until it happens and then all of the sudden everyone saw it. Even if it does happen in the next couple of months as Bill Fleckenstein has been saying due to a "nuclear winter in technology" (I think that's what he is calling, something like that anyway) at the beginning of the Y2K, I would still call it a coincidence though I'm sure he will think of it as something a little like genius (that's not necessarily to knock him exactly, I just think he has painted himself into an uncomfortable corner with his continual predictions and pretentions to actually knowing what will happen).
In any case, they have too many things on their plate, I think they're kidding themselves with LTO, they should just get out of it, try to focus on drives, on getting their desktop fixed, and getting mobile successfully started, since
if what I am reading is right, two and half inch drives may be the future anyway and if that is true then they are in their current configuration totally screwed.
Anyway I'm rambling here sorry, have a full stomach right now, just got home from an all day feast, which reminds me,
Hope you and everyone else who is celebrating has a great Thanksgiving!
Best wishes,
Sam |
