Stitch,
1. Your bandwidth point is I think the key one. "Static applications", things like operating systems, Office 2000, publishing/graphics apps, etc., etc. no longer provide the storage growth demand they once did. Its got to come from "library oriented applications", transient visual things like movies, and songs, and pictures coming in through a pipe instead of a CD in the mail. Most of us still have very small pipes.
2. Seagate remains a puzzle to me. I also went after their spec archives which aren't well organized for explaining history. But what I did find was densities which appear to be consistently behind competitors. Specifically, the U4 has a mere 2.2GB per surface, the U8 has 4.3GB per surface. Their highest density seems to be the Barracuda ATA II at 5.1GB per surface. One has to wonder how they manage to use more components per GB than the other players and still appear to make money. Is it because they are vertical? Is their internal media operation so much more efficient than KMAG and HMTT? Are they somehow making heads much cheaper than RDRT or TDK are? I don't know what the story is but it does seem like there is something worth understanding here that goes beyond headcount. Anyway, that and the VRTS trajectory led me to sell SEG prematurely....(I am afflicted with a chronic case of PE...which is NOT the same as ED, but rather premature ejac......:o)
3. I thought the Headway transaction was most interesting and goes to Z's point about Japanese suppliers. But perhaps the real question that remains is whether WDC, Quantum, Maxtor, and Samsung can afford NOT to support TWO major independents. They face just a bit of a dilemna there don't they? Might they ever really depend on IBM for heads?
Best Regards......Tom |
