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Technology Stocks : Micron Electronics (MUEI) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: 16bit who wrote (2235)	11/6/1997 6:14:00 PM
From: 16bit	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4074

To All, What will this mean? Micron Custom Manufacturing Services Announces Intent To Acquire Alcatel Bell's Colfontaine, Belgium, Facility BusinessWire, Wednesday, November 05, 1997 at 17:03 NAMPA, Idaho--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 5, 1997-- --Global contract manufacturer acquires European facility-- Micron Custom Manufacturing Services (MCMS) today announced the intent to acquire Alcatel Bell's Colfontaine, Belgium, operation. This acquisition would support MCMS' continued global expansion effort by adding its first European facility. MCMS will build products for some of its existing customers from the Colfontaine, Belgium, facility. Initially, MCMS plans to hire approximately 100 people to operate the 85,000 square-foot facility. "This is a strategic move for MCMS for several reasons," said Mr. Rob Subia, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of MCMS. "First, establishing an operation in Europe helps us further our mission of being a global, seamless service provider, and further positions MCMS to meet our customers' global demands. Concurrently, this acquisition is unique in that our relationship with global telecommunications leader Alcatel will continue beyond the acquisition, and they will be one of our major customers. Most importantly, we can now better serve our customers European points of integration by having a facility that is in close proximity to them." MCMS provides a full range of services for the manufacture of custom complex printed circuit boards, memory modules and system level assemblies, including design, product engineering, procurement and material management, assembly, test engineering, quality assurance and just-in-time delivery or end-order fulfillment. MCMS focuses its marketing efforts on original equipment manufacturers in the high-growth networking, telecommunications and computer system industries that generally require custom board and system level design, assembly and test, short manufacturing lead times at competitive pricing, and a high degree of quality and technology. Micron Custom Manufacturing Services, Inc., is a wholly owned subsidiary of Micron Electronics, Inc., and has operations in Nampa, ID, Durham, NC, and Penang, Malaysia. Micron Electronics, Inc., and its subsidiaries manufacture electronic products and provide services for a wide range of computing and digital applications. Micron Electronics, Inc., common stock trades on the NASDAQ Stock Market under the symbol MUEI. MCMS information is available by calling 208/898-2600 or via the company's home page at microncms.com . For further information on Alcatel, visit its web page at alcatel.com . CONTACT: Micron Electronics, Inc. Denise Smith, 208/898-3900 denisesmith@micron.com KEYWORD: IDAHO INDUSTRY KEYWORD: COMPUTERS/ELECTRONICS COMED TELECOMMUNICATIONS MERGERS/ACQ Today's News On The Net - Business Wire's full file on the Internet with Hyperlinks to your home page. URL: businesswire.com Copyright 1997, Business Wire

To: 16bit who wrote (2235)	11/6/1997 6:23:00 PM
From: John Erb	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4074

>>It is my contention that their is no program/software driving the market to bigger and faster machines. In the past you had software driving hardware. Programs were always pushing the hardware to the limit, so when a faster chip came out, there was instant demand. Currently, hardware is ahead of software. I don't know of any reason for the AVERAGE user to need anything greater than a Pentium 200. << As a corporate computer purchaser, interested industry observer and fanatic computer user, I totally agree. The next program/software that will drive people to faster hardware will be voice recognition, streaming video/audio, and 3D effects in all manner of programs. Since these technologies are in their infancy, and since people are still getting used to multi-tasking, e-mail and groupware, all of which can easily be handled by low-end (nowadays) machines, there isn't the demand for the bigger iron. Hence, IMO the trend toward the <$1K box. One source of sales that has not been explored enough (except by ALR and half-heartedly by Gateway) is what I'd call a transition box. This would be a box with the latest processor and chipset, PCI, perhaps video-on-board, power supply and case (no OS, RAM, keyboard, mouse, HD, cards, etc.). The user could then move all his existing components over to the new box and get the processor boost for a minimal investment. Now the pundits say that you might as well get everything new because all the components have to be tuned up to work at lightening speed with each other, but I say that's crap. I'd buy such a box today, to move from my poor 90MHz to a Pentium II with a 440 chipset. I'd buy twenty for my office. And I'd upgrade those older, poor, slow components at my leisure. The benefit of this, to Micron or whoever else would do it, is that they'd get a foot in the door with the customer. I buy Dells for my company, but I'd buy Micron transition boxes for $1500 or so. And when I need new, completely configured systems, if I was happy with the transition box's performance, I might switch to Micron. This makes complete sense to me, but I am a buyer only, and so I probably not completely circumspect on the matter. I am sure that the margins and market for this type of thing might simply just be too thin to warrant. But I sure am sick of buying all this new stuff when I've got most of it already (HD, RAM, OS, mouse, KB, etc.)

To: 16bit who wrote (2235)	11/8/1997 8:02:00 PM
From: Willsgarden	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4074

Faster Smaller and Cheaper...but not under 1000 yet!!!Not for speed and multitasking with graphics. Lets add video camera equip for conferencing and telephony.......let the pc makers worry about how to drive demand for new equip....I don't need a car that'll do 90mph let alone the 140 on my speedometer. I don't need a large screen TV but there it is. I don't need....ah.you get the point. Your point is well taken, and pc AND chip makers like intc and amd will need to adjust...AND THEY WILL!! Bill Monier