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

To: Mark Oliver who wrote (7607)	12/25/1999 2:33:00 AM
From: Mark Madden	Respond to of 9256

Mark - Thank you for the links on the Sharp recorder and broadband technology. The MPG 4 technology sounds versatile. From now I would like to see conference calls on MPG 4 format. We can store them for future reference. The communications industry is surely the most exciting industry of the times. I have been studying the industry for over a year. It is much more complex than storage with declining regulation, hundreds of startup companies and promise to deliver new services. I am a fan of Jim Crowe, CEO of Level 3. He claims prices for communications will drop quickly but costs will drop faster. Why can't low drive prices with no growth rate last forever? Drive price reductions over the last two years have eaten up profits needed to develop new products. IMHO, with the short product lives we've seen, companies can easily fall behind. Falling behind will be fatal with the lower cost and higher capacities we will see over the next couple years. I don't think anyone thinks the situation is stable. What can bring about this change? IMHO drive manufacturers need to build products costing 35% less and priced 10% less. Higher capacity products need to give them a new start at pricing for profits. It will take time. I do not know what started their dismal position nor how it was allowed to last this long but I believe the manager's positions will be very indefensible if they allow this to happen twice. It seems strange to me that with the variety drive manufacturing philosophies from vertical to flat, no manufacturer came out on top in the desktop market. They all developed similar products and produce them at similar cost. They are all losing money. Regards, Mark