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

To: Sam who wrote (1033)	7/19/1999 12:05:00 PM
From: Stitch	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1989

Gents; Just popping in to say that it may be wise to wait a bit to add to your SEG positions (though I did already). Look for a plant closing announcement soon, probably Wuxi, China. May knock a point or two off but it will be a great time to add to your positions (I will). This whole war is getting interesting. I still like what SEG is doing. And I am still staying caught up with reading this thread. By the way: July 19, 8:03 am Eastern Time Company Press Release SOURCE: Seagate Technology, Inc. Seagate Sets New Technology Record - 23.8 Billion Bits per Square Inch Seagate Milestone Pushes Densities to 23.8 Billion Bits per Square Inch, Beyond What Was Once Thought the Limit of Magnetic Recording MINNEAPOLIS, July 19 /PRNewswire/ -- Seagate Technology today announced the achievement of a world-record recording density of 23.8 billion bits per square inch (23.8 Gb/in2), nearly four times that of any hard drive shipping today. This breakthrough comes only five months after the Company's previous record setting 16.3Gb/in2 announcement. The new record of 23.8 Gb/in2 equates to a storage capacity of almost 32 Gigabytes on a single 3.5 inch disc. This capacity is adequate to store over 22 days of continuous MP3 music files. The demonstration which employed internally developed advanced GMR recording heads and low noise multilayer thin film media was the result of a team effort by Seagate's Recording Head and Recording Media Operations along with Seagate's Advanced Concepts Lab in Fremont, Calif. ''This achievement is especially important because of the extremely high linear bit density demonstrated using conventional longitudinal recording,'' said Tom Porter, Seagate's Chief Technical Officer. ''The whole industry has been concerned about the potential onset of superparamagnetic effects that could slow the rate of data storage capacity growth. The most striking aspect of this demonstration is that conventional disc drive architectures and technologies, combined with Seagate manufacturing processes, were leveraged to much greater areal density capability and substantial data rate.'' ''As we continue exploring consumer applications for disc-based home entertainment devices, the appetite for capacity seems insatiable,'' said Bob Teal, Seagate's vice president of Consumer Solutions. ''This breakthrough by Seagate's scientists provides the technology to deliver extreme capacities that could store more than a hundred hours of video programming, CD-quality music, and game console software within a single consumer electronics product.'' Some key parameters of the demonstration are: a track density of 45,800 tracks per inch, a linear bit density of 520,000 bits per inch, a raw data rate of 159 Mb/s, using a merged, untrimmed GMR read/inductive write head, and a multilayer thin film disc featuring exceptionally narrow magnetic grain size distribution. The head/media separation was 1.1 microinches; the on track error rate was less than 1 error in 10 million bits read. SEAGATE TECHNOLOGY will disclose additional details of this demonstration on August 10, 1999, at the Magnetic Recording Conference in San Diego, Calif.

To: Sam who wrote (1033)	7/19/1999 12:19:00 PM
From: Mark Madden	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1989

The "mystery man" may be absurd but he is right about one thing. SEG wants to buy their own stock. Maybe the CC was part of a strategy to get the price down to where they could get more shares for their investment.The Veritas deal kept them from meeting their previous buy back goals so they will begin that program this quarter. The CC had a strange tone of arrogance. SEG has no visibility of the future demand or pricing but if things continue they will have two bad quarters that will put them in a better position. This is because they are forced into a price war that will cause dislocation or technology losses of competitors. They have the leading technology, the broadest product line, the most money, the lowest production costs, equal time to market, and any company that competes with them will be losing money. Four companies are striving for 30-40% market share but only SEG deserves it. Some companies had the nerve to under price SEG last quarter. They will pay for that. Is SL warning other companies not to compete with SEG? IMO SL thinks a price war threat will drive the price down short term to benefit the buy back plan. It will also warn potential investors not to throw away money to support competitors because the companies have no valuable assets to sell when they go under. Mark M.

To: Sam who wrote (1033)	7/19/1999 2:39:00 PM
From: Kevin Linder	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1989

Sam - I agree with you in regards to the obvious mistakes made by Cramer's "Mystery Money Manager," however, there is one point that should not be ignored. SEG could be broken up for the various values of its parts. The 66 million VRTS shares at somewhere near $60 a share are a very attractive asset. It represents not only a nice chunk of stock of a quickly appreciating company - but also a majority share VRTS. Ths Sandisk and DRGN shares represent what could be very lucrative market niches and would provide many companies a nice toehold in a growing market. Then you have to through in the total amount of cash $1.6 billion and the HDD operations. I think that there has to be some thought right now at SEG headquarters that a potential corporate raider would find this attractive. I think that actually a company like IBM would find it most attractive - I doubt if regulatory approval would be granted for such a merger. However, IBM might be attracted enough to just try for the VRTS; Sandisk and Gadzooks stock... I do think that as QNTM and maybe MSFT try the tracking stock concept that SEG will be watching very carefully. If they are successful, then SEG may just attempt their own SEG Software spinoff. Remember that all of last year SEG was looking at doing a "carveout" of the SEG Software division. I'm sure the VRTS; DRGN and Gadzooks stock holding along with SEG software would make a nice $6 billion company. I also would not be surprised to see a debt offering by SEG. True they have adequate cash holdings of their own - but, a debt offering does something else too. It may prevent a competitor from issueing bonds. many insititutions limit their exposure to an industry and would much rather buy debt from a strong company rather than a weak competitor. A bond offering in the next three to six months might prevent WDC (as an example) from raising money in that fashion. If this CC is truely a "War Warning," then this would be an extremely logical move. I hadn't thought of it in these terms, but it does make sense. If SEG assumes they are operating efficiently and have a "lowest cost" product then an all out war would make sense. Kevin Linder