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Technology Stocks : Western Digital (WDC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Stitch who wrote (8285)	12/22/1997 5:27:00 PM
From: Thomas Haegin	Respond to of 11057

Why Thomas likes WDC... Stitch, gee, I have so many replies to write! OK, very quickly: e - I think that WDC has good management. Haggerty and co. have steered the company well in the last few years. Today, WDC is debt-free. That's a major plus in a cut-throat business like DD. - I also like the fact that they outsource a lot. It should be easier for them to move increase or decrease production. - They manufacture only in low-cost countries: 2 plants in SGP, 1 in Malaysia. That's it. - Blair told me that they sees growth potential for WDC in the market for enterprise drives. They recently formed the Enterprise division and a research center in Rochester I guess. Blair said: "This market is growing very rapidly". WDC until now has been mainly in the personal store business - or so I understood him. The negative I see is that they have been caught late with the transformation to MR. In this I absolutley agrre with you. I'm not so concerned that they don't manufacture their heads themselves. Not to manufacture heads has been a positive for them in the last couple of years. Read Rite and others manufacture these heads for the other customers as well, so WDC is not relying on proprieatory technology. I think it's a good idea to outsource commodity type products. I hope that they will be quick to get a grip in the enterprise business and not fall asleep there as they did with MR. I do not necessarily favour WDC over SEG or QNTM. QNTM has the leading edge right now it seems in availability of MR tech. They also are in the tape business quite successfully I reckon. SEG is big. That may be their advantage. But what they did with that plant in Ireland... hopefully, other business of some years ago turned out better... I guess this is about it why I like WDC the company. Of course, We all cannot like the stock price very much down here <g>. You may wish to consult PX also on the subject. I think he likes WDC, but the industry is still pretty unsettled right now. Critiques to my views are welcome, please. I really do not consider myself an DD industry expert. Generally, due to the anticipatory behaviour of the stock market (nomally, that is) I would not be surprised if the stock bottoms here. OTOH, I do not predict that this is the bottom. If more bad news comes aout of Asia, we will tank some more IMO. Maybe we still have to see more clearly what will happen to demand in Asia. For my take, demand in Europe eill be firm next year. Consider this a given. The U.S. should be also fine, I'd say. Regards, Thomas