>>What if Intc, Txn, Mot, and other Semiconductor manufacturers just quit making
the 16 and 64 Ram chip and only produce the 128 or 256 Ram chip. Won't this
force the consumer to purchase the profit making chip. <<
INTC, TXN, and MOT don't make memory, or at least not significant amounts of it.
More to the point, the memory market is composed of several companies who are all trying to kill each other, and memory chips are essentially interchangeable. The minute company A starts to make money by switching to 128 Mb chips, everyone else will switch, too. That just moves the same oversupply problems into the next generation (and is what seems to be happening now with the 16-64 transition). If company A tries to increase prices on 128 Mb chips too much, because no one else is making them yet, then all the (price-driven) boxmakers just stick with the smaller chips from other vendors.
(Yes, the DRAM companies do make money sometimes, because the switches don't happen overnight. But when the group as a whole makes real money for any length of time, new companies start joining the party.)
INTC isn't a good comparison. They have a high-value-added product that the boxmakers *have* to buy *from them.* The memory makers have a commodity product.
Katherine |
