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Technology Stocks : Disk Drive Sector Discussion Forum

WDC 162.40

+2.9%

Nov 17 3:59 PM EST

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To: Gus who wrote (1559)	11/14/1997 9:51:00 PM
From: Pierre-X	Read Replies (2) of 9256

Re: Nov 13, 97 WDC Shareholder's Meeting __Here are my full notes on the meeting yesterday. __The text of the presentation is already available on the WDC website, and the precise link was posted by William Leiby in WDC #7577. __My notes cover Haggerty's responses to various questions from shareholders, including mine: ú limited visibility in competitor's pricing and capacity expansion plans ú Currently 11 MR head producers vs 5 TFI ú Hiring freeze on -nonproduction- personnel ú But Micropolis shutdown is opportunity to hire skilled people in a very tight labor market ú Alleged that industry was broadly cutting back on production. [I questioned him about the need for ALL players to play ball for this to be effective, but his answers were noncomittal.] ú Admitted that price drops were probably result of overproduction ú WDC has historically been able to maintain a $10/unit pricing premium due to factors like reputation. ú Noncommital about possibility to leapfrog quickly to GMR ú WDC is totally committed to the HDD business which is their one and only focus. After the main session I managed to speak a bit with Kathy Braun, Pres. and CEO of the Personal Storage division: ú WDC makes ~30% of their own platters (500 employees?) ú RDRT MR heads looking very good [I assume she meant quality and yield] ú APM fumbled badly, they are in transition to MR but she confirmed that their R&D spending is low ú WDC is in the process of qualifying head -stackers- since heads are not constrained but head stack assemblies (HSAs) are in short supply ú Confirmed that the yield problems on the 1.7m/p drives were APM products, and that they are moving away from it ASAP ú Fujitsu is the major aggressor, and the near term depends on their actions ú Confirmed that hi-cap drives (e.g. 9GB) were yielding very well ú She expressed surprise at the oversupply in the current quarter, as the Dec quarter has historically ALWAYS been tight ú Alleged that NEC is cutting back HDD production ú Hinted at some kind of drive interface revolution in the works Pierre-X

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