To: Sarmad Y. Hermiz who wrote (8224 ) 4/8/2000 5:31:00 AM From: Stitch Read Replies (2) | Respond to
Sarmad,<<I'd like to second the motion made by someone on a Yahoo thread that perhaps Seagate's troubles were disguised by its vast VRTS riches, and in fact the less integrated DD makers are the most promising as far as profits>> <<It just now entered the NAS market through a partnership. >> Seagate announced its partnership with Sweden based Axis Communications in October of 1999. Their recent agreement with Cobalt to resell NAS products is an interesting addition to their approach to the NAS market. I think Seagate may be acting more thoughtfully then that represented by the acquisition by WDC of Crag actually. It is becoming a crowded space and when that space is occupied by your customers (EMC, Compaq, Network Appliance, Auspex, Dell, and so on)already I think it deserves some solid thinking. I think we should put the nascent NAS/SAN market into perspective. Its exciting with high double digit growth expected. A recent Dataquest forecast predicts it will be just over a billion dollars this year and rising to nearly $ 7B by 2003. In addition, there will likely be a chance for better margins due to the higher value add opportunity. But I do not feel Seagate has surrendered a lead hear because Maxtor and Connex have made acquisitions and rushed to compete with their customers.
