Henry -
RE: Drive Prices...
Be careful what you compare when looking at DD price history. It can be useful info, but is usually extremely misleading.
Bigger GMs come from being time-to-market, that's what it's all about. It's by far the best way to increase profits - note SEG's comments over the last year. They've significantly increase productivity, efficiency, utilization of resources, reduced waste, blah de blah, but they've always said they would need to be one of the time-to-market leaders in order to enjoy the really high margins. All of your comparisons are for DD capacities that have been out for YEARS. The bleeding edge prices have fallen 50%+ during that same period you compare.
The key IMO to choosing which DD maker to invest in is to pick the time-to-market leader for the coming year. My fear however, is that those high margins they used to enjoy might be going away. Used to be that the avg Joe(me being my only real datapt) used to peruse thru the journals waiting to find that ad for the latest DD that came out. Boy was I excited when I could buy a 1GB DD, then 2GB came out in 96, 4GB in 97, 6.4, 8.4... I would always be willing to pay a little higher premium because I was so desperate for space. But my enthusiasm has died recently. I did purchase a 17.2GB Maxtor a few weeks ago for $330, but that was after I watched it drift down $400+ in Nov98.
20GB & 25GB is available now, 30GB+ this year, 50GB+ in 2000. Who really needs(read: gonna pay a premium) for this type of capacity? Box builders continue to stuff bigger and bigger DDs because they can do so cheaply and there's a bit of male ego attached to it, but they don't do so because of demand IMO. It's a selling pt. It is also going to kill the upgrade process.
Doom & Gloom,
todd
BTW, that doesn't mean I'll never invest again, after last week, I do have my eye on MXTR... |
