To: Chuck Lehman who wrote (18528 ) 3/2/2000 4:29:00 PM From: Rich Wolf Read Replies (1) | Respond to
Chuck, I think there was much misinterpretation of Lev's remarks regarding 'not wanting to allocate too much production capacity to cellphone cells.' People are mistaken in their impression because the *timing* of products resulted in more cellphone makers stepping up to the plate before the laptop makers. But this only makes sense, since the cellphone makers have alternative second sources. The laptop makers take on a risk when they design around Valence cells, as there is little alternative if something happens to their supply. Lev may have thought a year ago that some laptop maker would want the cells as a drop-in for a drive-bay, but it is understandable in retrospect why that didn't happen: the specs on the li-ion 'bricks' improved enough to actually be superior to the gen1 cells Valence was offering... AND the li-ion industry was suffering a glut of production capacity (this is not so much the case now, as the market has grown enough to absorb much of this excess capacity)... which drove down the pricing on the large cells, and certainly left any repackager highly UNmotivated to push the Valence cells onto the customers, since the customer could just stick with cheap, proven technology that had equal or better specs.
