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To: Think4Yourself who wrote (10687)	12/6/1997 4:30:00 PM
From: Mark Adams	Respond to of 12298

Per IBM, GMR is possible with existing MR lines. IMO- it's more of a license issue than a refit issue. FWIW

To: Think4Yourself who wrote (10687)	12/6/1997 5:59:00 PM
From: T Bowl	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12298

Ken - <<what has WDC stated in the last few weeks to say they would not consider GMR?>> On 17nov97 WDC was asked about the IBM GMR entry into the market. They said: 1) They do not see IBM as a competitor in the std desktop market. 2) Their is NO cost advantage for them 3) the technology DOES NOT fit into the sweet spot. Not sure they can eve do that.(And IBM designed the heads!) WDC was very negative on GMR in the CC. Have you seen the prices for the lower caps? $275 for a 3.2GB!! Why would anyone buy that? Conversely, why would anyone want to produce that? Sure, if you want a 16GB DD then you'll have to buy the IBM, but below that... GMR is a long time away before it'll come into the std market. todd

To: Think4Yourself who wrote (10687)	12/6/1997 6:13:00 PM
From: Jonathan Bird	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12298

Additionally the word leapfrog is quoted because it is your term. I trace the term back to Sankar and Gary Ku. I appears they may have both come up with this theory independently. Gary pulled it out of his butt when he saw the word "GMR" on APM's web site. Sankar gets credit for at least connecting it with WDC. To me this is a natural progression. To me leapfrog would imply skipping MR and going straigt to GMR. It's too late for WDC to even do this in the true sense. From a business viewpoint it still makes sense to me for APM to do this. The choice is whether to upgrade the equipment/lines/products/ raining once in the next few years, or twice. My understanding(gathered from IBM and Veeco) is that the transition from MR to GMR will be much smoother then from TFI to MR. Most of the equipment will work for both. When APM, or anyone else, decides to switch depends on when they can find the demand to ship GMR in enough volume. When you decide to produce a certain head you want to make a lot of them. A 2.1 GB head represents a lower common denomintor then say a 3.4 GB head and can therefor be used in more product levels, and therfore you can make a lot more of them. Additionally, IBM's GMR heads are starting at 3.38 GB per platter. This is completly within the range of what MR will do when demand supports it. And since GMR heads are more complex(more layers) and yields will be worse there is no rush. Out of curiosity, what has WDC stated in the last few weeks to say they would not consider GMR? It's not that they said they wouldn't consider it. But statements like this from Tuesday... "Based on the Company's revised build plans, its production of hard drives with MR heads will exceed 75% of total drives shipped as the Company exits the June, 1998 quarter." ..lead me to believe that WDC has other things on its mind. But you are right that WDC has no obligation to reveal its strategy and what they said could just be a trick. FYI: RDRT has been shipping GMR heads to customers for evaluation since October of '96. Jon Bird