Pierre-X,
"The big question is, what is Fujitsu doing with respect to pricing? Will they continue to price aggressively in pursuit of market share? Will they expand the battle front to the higher capacity points? The next big question is, what is Samsung planning? They hae publicly stated that they intend to achieve No. 3 drivemaker status in 2 years."
I agree with you completely. But, frankly, I don't know how to find out with any certainty what Fujitsu or Samsung is planning. I am not privy to their ambitions or the means they are willing to use to achieve those ambitions. Samsung may want to be number 3 by 2000, but how do they want to get there? How much money are they willing to lose to achieve that goal? It won't be easy, because the top 3 independent vendors are all pretty tough competitors who have been there before, not to mention IBM. There are several ways to get market share in a market like drives. One way is compete on price. Another way is to offer something that the competition doesn't offer--higher speed, greater reliability, longer warranty, easier interface, whatever may be significant to them. Another way is to see what the trend is, get to the next place before the competition does, and convince your customers that they want/need this now (e.g., fibre channel, gmr, whatever).
In any case, I'm glad you are "busting your ass to delve into this issue."
Best wishes,
Sam |
