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Technology Stocks : Disk Drive Sector Discussion Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mark Madden who wrote (7603)	12/23/1999 3:41:00 PM
From: Mark Oliver	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9256

<Growth in the drive sector has been non-existent if measured in sales or earnings but the unit growth has been steadily over 15% per year. The lower prices have reduced revenues and earnings to no growth status but this will not continue forever.> Why??? <With a good pricing environment sales in earnings could grow beyond the 15% unit growth.> What can bring about this change? Or better yet, why has this dismal position ever been allowed to happen? Are these companies run by terrible managers, or do they have an indefensible position? You mentioned the comparison to semiconductors. Interesting question. Can one compare a process based manufacturer to a discrete manufacturer? It seems to me that a lot of the yields based risk and reward of the process part of disk drives have been off loaded to suppliers, but even they don't seem to be able to make gains. Drive makers have more problem being a good assembler, than an innovative producer of technology. Look at Quantum who seems to be a virtual manufacturer via MKE. Would be interesting to see WDC close, or sell their entire manufacturing process, to move into a virtual manufacturing model using a Jabil, Sanmina or Solectron. But, if they did, what would be left? Or, have they become a sort of virtual manufacturer for IBM, with no obvious benefit? Regards, Mark

To: Mark Madden who wrote (7603)	12/24/1999 2:31:00 PM
From: Sarmad Y. Hermiz	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9256

Mark, Since you keep track of disk drive prices, I am sure you've noticed that the major vendors each have around 15 or 20 models listed in the on-line catalogs. Is it really possible that the re-sellers carry 100 different disk drives in duplicate capacities and an irrational price structure ? For instance sometimes larger drives are listed at lower cost than smaller ones at same rotation and transfer speed etc... I did a detailed look at what is actually in-stock, and I think I know what is happening. The re-sellers do not update prices on out-of-stock items and apparently they are slow to remove discontinued items from the catalog. I have found 3 shops that indicate whether an item is in stock. They are CompUSA, TigerDirect and CDW. Do you know of others ? And thanks again for posting the results of your survey. -Sarmad