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Technology Stocks : C-Cube -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: BillyG who wrote (25921)	12/1/1997 1:22:00 PM
From: Maya	Respond to of 50808

BillyG, This was posted on the C-Cube Microsystems thread few minutes earlier. Everyone is welcome to visit and start using the C-Cube Microsystems thread at: exchange2000.com

To: BillyG who wrote (25921)	12/1/1997 3:00:00 PM
From: DiViT	Respond to of 50808

Toshiba's Exit Points to Unforgiving Climate ÿ 12/01/97 Computer Retail Week Page 52 Copyright 1997 CMP Publications Inc. ÿ The computer retail market has always been particularly unforgiving, but Toshiba's recent disclosure of a plan to depart the retail desktop market after a year's effort points to a new level of ruthlessness. There's no question Toshiba parachuted into stores at a particularly volatile time. Its feature-packed high-end desktops were about as appetizing to a market thirsting for cheaper PCs as saltines after a marathon. But it wasn't just the wrong product line that did Toshiba in. It also was hammered last year by Intel's decision to postpone the launch of MMX technology until this January. That marketing coup left Toshiba and a handful of PC makers holding warehouses full of inventory, and forced them to discount PCs in early 1997 and delay product launches until they could close out the old. The price-protection bill Toshiba was left holding reportedly ran into the tens of millions of dollars. Amazingly for a company of Toshiba's stature, the Japanese conglomerate seems to have been blindsided by the pace and the harrowing turns of the U.S. computer retail market. Just when it thought it had conquered its mountainous inventory and price-protection woes, it was hit by a wall of sub-$1,000 PCs that slapped it backward so fiercely that only a white flag could stop the barrage. Toshiba's exit is also a signal that the allure of DVD is beginning to fade. At the launch of its consumer desktops just over a year ago, Toshiba painted an idyllic picture in which every system rolled off the production line with a DVD drive built in. For one of the biggest producers of DVD , and certainly its biggest backer, such a scenario must have seemed quite prosperous for Toshiba. Unfortunately, DVD drives have only scratched the surface of home penetration. What's more, those drives that are making it into systems are doing so by default. System makers have determined that as CD-ROM speeds begin to top off, and DVD drives plummet in price, there's little reason not to go with DVD . But the premiums associated with the technology a year ago are all but gone. When Toshiba launched its consumer desktops just over a year ago, a high-level executive said one of the driving factors was the belief that notebook computers would never fully dominate the computer market. It was a critical admission of fear that Toshiba itself could not drive the market to make notebooks the computer system of choice. Ironically, and perhaps as a result of its consumer-desktop ambitions, Toshiba's market share in notebooks has slid. The internal distraction of a product line under constant assault clearly took Toshiba off the mark in notebooks. And while its admission of leaving the retail desktop arena accompanied no vow of redoubled commitment to notebooks, expect to see some fierce paddling by Toshiba up the notebook creek to regain lost ground. Finally, Toshiba's decision to leave the market serves as testament to the skills of those who have played in computer retailing and still have working body parts. Compaq in particular has made the current market so unbearable at so many levels that we wouldn't be surprised to see others bailing before too long. The lessons:Agility is the defining trait in today's environment. And not even a giant like Toshiba can foist its interpretation of what consumers want on an unforgiving public.

To: BillyG who wrote (25921)	12/1/1997 3:07:00 PM
From: John Rieman	Respond to of 50808

DirecTV Japan Boardcasting......................... Directv Debuts In Crowded Japan Digital TV Market Received: December 01, 1997 07:45am EST From: REUTERS By Yuko Inoue TOKYO, Dec 1 (Reuters) - Satellite broadcaster DirecTV on Monday launched the newest service in Japan's crowded digital TV market, but analysts said viewers may wait before subscribing as the broadcasting competition hots up. Japanese television-watchers are putting off their digital-viewing decisions until next spring, when Japan Sky Broadcasting Corp (JSkyB) will become the third powerful digital TV operator in the market, the analysts said. Then, JSkyB, DirecTV and Japan's pioneer broadcaster PerfecTV will have to jockey for position by boosting the number of their channels and cutting down rates to gain as many subscribers as possible, they said. "Consumers have no reason to hurry a decision. Real competition for viewers won't start until next April," said Nanako Sakaguchi, an analyst at Dresdner Kleinwort Benson. All three operators want to repeat the success enjoyed by digital broadcasters in the United States in the early 1990s, when digital satellite TV, which can beam down hundreds of channels, began its ascent to today's five million subscribers. But the battle between the three operators will be intense in Japan, raising speculation of a possible shakeup in the sector even before all three main players get off the ground. DirecTV Japan, a company in the U.S. Hughes Electronics group, launched its service with an initial 63 channels on Monday, adding to the 100 channels offered by PerfecTV that begun service in October 1996. JSkyB, which is part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp empire and has recently recruited powerful allies like Sony Corp and Fuji Television , will start beaming 100 pay-channels in April. "We are firmly committed to the succcesses of digital satellite broadcast in the U.S., Latin America and Japan," Michael Smith, chairman of Hughes Electronics Corp, told a news conference. # Page 2 DirecTV Japan chairman Gareth Chang said the company planned to raise the number of channels to 90 in coming weeks and to apply for permission to launch more channels from the Japanese government in February or March 1998. DirecTV, a partnership between Hughes, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co and other Japanese firms, will offer films from Hollywood and Tokuma Shoten, an animation powerhouse that has taken a 10 percent stake in the broadcaster. It will also carry some U.S. programming from NBC, Japanese soccer and rugby matches, but most of the content is similar to that of PerfecTV -- a reflection of the difficulty of acquiring channels attractive to Japanese viewers. DirecTV's strategy is to become a price leader. It offers two programme packages to consumers at rates 10 to 20 percent cheaper than those of PerfecTV. Viewers are closely watching the competition between the three companies and growth in subscribers at PerfecTV, a consortium of powerful Japanese trading houses including Itochu Corp has been relatively slow so far, with 400,000 subscribers acquired since last October. PerfecTV and JSkyB recently announced an agreement to share an antenna and decoder system, allowing viewers to subscribe to either of their services under the same system. The strong popularity of the analogue-satellite service run by the semi-public Japan Broadcasting Corp (NHK) is also cited as a possible cause of slow growth for digital satellite services. NHK's analogue satellite service is already available in one in four Japanese households. ((Tokyo newsroom +81 3 3432-8595 tokyo.equities.newsroom@reuters.com)) REUTERS