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

To: T Bowl who wrote (1682)	12/5/1997 12:09:00 PM
From: Chuck Bleakney	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 9256

To self... Given the current market conditions in the DD industry, I think that we have to have a pretty difficult shakedown before this mess is going to go away. After giving it some rather careful thought, its my take that either a couple of the current companies will have exit this market or the leaders will have to accept a smaller share. On the exit side, I see the newcomers from Korea as likely candidates because of the tightened situation with investment dollars and the change in percentage of profits coming out vs what they initially thought would come out... I don't expect them to exit outright but simply follow through with what they have in the works and exit as they make an all out effort to recover as much of their prior investment as possible. I see WDC as quite exposed because of its late transition to MR... with weakened margins on top of this, it is likely to have very long term effects for them. If they loose too much market share in the next 6 months to a year then their future does not look healthy. SEG and IBM are giants and should be able to pull themselves through this, though I think that there will have to be some considerable changes made to bring profit margins back up. I think that SEG is going to have to accept a smaller market share than it previously took for granted. IBM is in a funny position, since it is in direct competition with a lot of its potential customers then it will be a vendor of opportunity. It still will command a healthy share of any market it desires... Quantum is somewhere in the middle and is insulated for a time by its diversified products. It should be able to emerge with a comfortable share of the business when this scramble is finished. Its still going to be an uphill battle given all the competition. Naturally, my view is a bit biased!!! So what do the rest of you think? I'd really like to know... so that I can adjust mine to be as realistic as possible. Chuck