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

To: Sheba who wrote (1730)	12/10/1997 3:07:00 PM
From: Gus	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9256

Sheba, Re: sub-$1,000 computers In less than a year, sub-$1,000 systems have gobbled up more than 41 percent of the retail market. And they show no signs of slowing, according to retail sales data from Intelect ASW Marketing Services.... Sub-$1,000s Continue Market Infiltration techweb.com Re: IDC 1998 PC forecast IDC's forecast shows 79.1 million PCs being shipped this year, said John Brown, manager of IDC's Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker, based in Mountain View, Calif. Previously, IDC expected 80.1 million units to be shipped worldwide, or a growth rate of 15.7 percent. In 1996, the unit shipment growth was 17.6 percent over 1995.... PC Growth To Slow In '98 techweb.com Some notes... 1) ...So 79.1 M 1997 PCs x 1.135 (13.5% growth) = 89.8 M 1998 PCs. Using the widely used ratio of 1.5 disk drives sold for every PC sold, this translates to 89.8 M x 1.5 = a potential market of only 134.7 million units! I believe that the IDC estimate of the 1997 DD market is 125 million units and some other forecasts put it at 134 million units! Flat demand + oversupply/price war + low-end PC pricing skew = red flag, simply as a matter of self-preservation. 2) Wild cards: a) 2 OS rollouts in 1998. MSFT is already distributing Windows 98 coupons in Japan but demand hasn't picked up. Troubling indicator. b) Consumer behavior. What will the increasing number of sub-$1000 PC buyers do when they outgrow their 1.0 to 2.1 GB disk drives? I believe IDC is starting to track this because they came out with an estimate that the DD/PC unit relationship will expand to 2 DD sold for every PC sold by 2000. This is already happening in enterprise storage where $1.5-2.50+ storage dollars are being spent for every server dollar, but that's being skewed heavily by a corporate upgrade cycle keyed, among other things, to the hard deadlines imposed by the Year 2000 issue (consensus: new systems must be in place by end of 1999 to assure exhaustive year-round testing) and the Euro conversion. Re: Tracking the Koreans ...S&P also cited a slower-than-expected production ramp of next-generation 64-megabit DRAM chips and the difficult market faced by U.S.-based hard disk drive maker Maxtor as contributing to the credit warning.... Hyundai To Cut Capital Expenditures By 30 Percent techweb.com Factoids: Hyundai also owns Symbios Logic - a $600 million (sales) mass storage IC vendor - and Axil Computers - a mid-range Unix/NT server vendor. There is synergy between Maxtor and these 2 Hyundai subsidiaries so if the Koreans decide to pull out of DDs (highly unlikely) or pool its disk drive resources with Samsung (possible end-game given that Maxtor is operating at full capacity which it is doubling with a plant in China slated to come online in mid-1998 while Samsung is probably not there yet) that may help to alleviate the supply-demand imbalance. Re: Post-Cold War Hardball with a Lameduck Government "...The problem is people, especially foreign investors, do not trust the South Korean government," said Yi Seung-gook, head of research at ABN Amro Hoare. "If South Korea doesn't want to see big corporates like Samsung or Hyundai go under, the government has to regain its credibility," Yi said... Distrust of govt building in S.Korea crisis <--funky headline biz.yahoo.com Gus

To: Sheba who wrote (1730)	12/10/1997 5:33:00 PM
From: Mark Madden	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 9256

Sheba, I'm with you. The $1000 computers I have seen at retailers are really stripped down. They save a couple hundred dollars with an older Intel processor, delete all software but Windows, eliminate any video or audio enhancements, provide a modem at extra cost and provide disk drives with plenty of capacity for today's use (but not tomorrow's). Then they put it all in a plastic case (instead of the older metal cases) I believe these are new buyers or people updating from old 486's or 386's so they can be compatible with today's software. Experienced computer buyers understand how fast the equipment becomes obsolete and try to buy equipment that will be usable for 3 or 4 years. Maybe in a year or two these new buyers will be hooked and will need an update again. Or maybe their tiny disk drives will be full and they will need to purchase another drive to add new software or files. The big question I have is - What is holding the experienced computer buyers back? Are they waiting for DVD's? Windows 98? This new wave of larger and faster drives? I hope the products this Spring inspire purchases on the higher end. Regards Mark M

To: Sheba who wrote (1730)	12/11/1997 1:17:00 AM
From: Zeuspaul	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9256

Those $1000 PC's blow the socks off my less than three year old high end $2300 (just talking box, I already owned the monitor etc.)computer with 16 MB ram and a 1.6 GB harddrive 28.8 modem, 1 MB video card. These $1000 boxes have 32 MB RAM, 4.5 GB harddrive and 56k modems. I could care less about all the LE software that comes on the high end machines, I have already purchased the full product. The $1000 machines are generally more generic and easier to upgrade. I am always in front and watch the guy about 2 years behind me buy twice the machine for half the price.....who is the smart buyer?