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Technology Stocks : Seagate Technology - Fundamentals -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mark Oliver who wrote (987)	7/11/1999 1:19:00 PM
From: Sam	Respond to of 1989

Al made the investment in Sandisk, and remains on their BoD, I believe. He also brought in Luzco. I think (speculate) his initial thoughts were that their business was throwing off too much cash for the business itself, and decided to expand into software. This was when they were the undisputed King of the High End, after the Imprimus acquisition. I don't know that they exactly "timed" these investments, I think they made them when they were available. SNDK last October was briefly lower than their cost years ago (back in '94, perhaps?). Who knows what Dragon is worth? The VRTS deal was probably opportunistically put together by Luzco recognizing potential synergies between the two companies, and knowing that he could no longer afford to be distracted by the software division given the huge challenges of the drive sector. I disagree that they should go out of their way to seek outside investments. They need to remain focussed on surviving and thriving as a drive company. That is what they are, for better or worse, not an investment company. The same cash flow that used to be there isn't there anymore, at least not right now, and lots of competitors have popped up on the high end. I don't think that they should even bother with their LTO project on similar grounds: they have too much else to do and risk being distracted. They have enough on their plate, and it makes more sense to leverage their investments in drive technologies to enter the 2.5 inch sector than it does to try to go into tape which is a completely different ball game and can't use much of the same research, thus creating more R&D inefficiencies than is necessary. My two cents as a long time part owner of this company.

To: Mark Oliver who wrote (987)	7/11/1999 4:27:00 PM
From: Kevin Linder	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1989

Whether this (their investmetn vision)is something brought in from Al Shugart or Steve Luzco is a very good question. I think (maybe Stitch or Gottfried will help me out here) that the Seagate Software founding predates Luzco. The expansion of it to its present terms I think is a product of Luzco's vision though. I think Shugart was a fine gentleman and certainly built the company to the point where it is well positioned in this war. It is one reason why SEG is better positioned in the industry rather than some others. Kevin Linder