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

To: Mark Oliver who wrote (1275)	10/21/1997 6:28:00 PM
From: JS Ogrady	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9256

My only comment is RDRT is one LAME stock.

To: Mark Oliver who wrote (1275)	10/21/1997 6:39:00 PM
From: Sam	Respond to of 9256

"What's the situation in enterprise? Is there still a big back up of inventory? SEG has done very badly. We forgive you Sam and Gus. Come back." Thanks, Mark. I needed that. <ggg> I wish I knew. I would have thought that the inventory problem would have been cleared up by now, but it obviously isn't. QNTM just said that they may take a charge of up to $35 million to clean up their high end group, which lost money last quarter. How could high end demand be down, with all the Web stuff going on, and all of the massive databases out there? Is IBM taking share (they said that their drive operation was strong in the last quarter, BTW, without any details that I saw), or Maxtor or Micropolis, two companies that we don't hear much about but they are still kicking out there? I don't know. WDC isn't big enough yet to make much of a dent--I think they just started shipping 8.4 gig, and don't go any higher than that yet. There can't be allocation on the high end, with everyone losing money. This should be good news for companies like EMC, MTIC, SOS, etc., who are the big buyers and resellers and big drives. EMC is splitting 2 for 1. I personally wouldn't mind if Lawrence makes a bundle on his short in the next couple of months so that I can buy some--it is too high for me right now, but it is a good company. If anyone else has any insight into what is going on in the high end, I would like to hear it. Hope Australia is treating you well. Hi to all the cute Kiwis and Koalas down under, Sam

To: Mark Oliver who wrote (1275)	10/21/1997 6:40:00 PM
From: dougjn	Respond to of 9256

Hey, I'll talk about what I want. W/curtesy of OFF TOPIC to alert those who are interested only in subject title. What more are you asking, censorship? Alerting should be enough. While I know some of what you asked, I'm not inclined at the moment to respond.

To: Mark Oliver who wrote (1275)	10/21/1997 9:55:00 PM
From: Gottfried	Respond to of 9256

Mark, there is little on DD in IBM's earnings announcement, except for Gerstner's remarks <snip>... We introduced a new hard disk drive for desktop PCs that holds 8.4 gigabytes of data -- four times as much information as the average disk drive. <snip> Storage product revenues increased, as did revenues from the company's semiconductor unit, IBM Microelectronics. The full report is at... ibm.com GM

To: Mark Oliver who wrote (1275)	10/22/1997 12:35:00 AM
From: Frodo Baxter	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 9256

QNTM conference call report: Firstly, management was VERY open, VERY optimistic, and VERY respectful and indulgent of the analysts. Look for reiterated buys. They didn't beg for multiple expansion, but they might as well have. I love these guys. You won't see this company renting the corporate jet from the CEO's other company... - HUGE losses from heads; >$10 mln for their 49% share. Still 15-20% of internal requirements. - HUGE losses from enterprise; $20 mln post-tax, $27 mln pre-tax. 9% of revenue. Prices are below QNTM's 20% gross margin model. Basically, competitive market caused by battle to be second-source (lower prices) mixed with SEG overproduction (inventory glut). Well is poisoned and won't be improved until March quarter. Industry is acting responsibly and adjusting production. QNTM will not compete on price to steal temporary market share. May take action to speed up ramp of Viking II and Atlas III. High channel inventory. - Met 8% operating model for desktop; revenue $1 bln. ASP $171, up slightly. 6.3 mln units shipped, 4 mln Fireball ST, 1.5 mln Bigfoot CY. 15% <2GB, 40% 2.1GB, 45% >2.5GB. Expects continued migration upward. Thinks they have 50% market share for >4GB drives. Were NOT affected by low-end pricing pressure because their drives don't go that low. Nifty, huh? Normal channel inventory. 20 inventory turns. Quotes IDC projection of 4Q sequential growth rate as 22%. Projects flat margins for 4Q. - Beat 15-25% operating model for DLT; $339 mln sales, +27% sequential; sequential growth will slow next quarter (difficult comparison), but will make 100% for fiscal year. ~1/3 of units shipped: DLT2000, 4000, and 7000. New products - Fireball SE highly leveraged. Should be fastest ramp ever. Crossover in March quarter. Ramp constrained not by production, but by OEM qualification (why the heck does this take so long anyway?). Will ship to 1 or more OEMs next month. - New Bigfoot to be announced next week. Already in production and qualified at 1 OEM. It's a damn shame SEG is so poorly managed. They single-handedly caused the low-end problem and are at least complicit in the high-end problem. It had been widely speculated that competitors are eating SEG's high-end lunch. This no longer seems to be the case. What really happened was that they shipped too much, then lowered prices. Everybody loses.