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

To: Stitch who wrote (2134)	1/7/1998 3:38:00 AM
From: Gus	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9256

Thanks, Stitch. I'm curious to find out what role WDC played in this acquisition. Because WDC is a new customer of STMD and apparently a long-time customer of Akashic, one can reasonably assume that WDC's plans played some kind of role in this sale. Anyway, despite the longtime glut in platters, there are 2 new platter makers this year: 1) Dow Chemical - specializing in media optimized for 10,000 rpm and faster disk drives. Ramp in 1998 but expected 1999 capacity - 1.0 million a month. Below is a link to survey of Dow's target market. Storage Data Rates? or Revving up for Faster Drive RPMs storage.digital.com 2) NGK Insulators - this one is interesting. They claim to have developed a process that will allow them to make glass media as cheaply as aluminum media. Glass platters supposedly provide superior shock resistance and make it easier to achieve higher densities, but these have been more expensive than aluminum platters by about 10 to 20%, limiting its use to higher-margin laptop disk drives. Ramp in 1998 but expected 1999 capacity - 1.0-2.0 million a month. Dow looks like a narrow-based and premium-priced niche operation, but NGK Insulators' entry deserves to be monitored more closely, especially by those still in those platter stocks. Gus

To: Stitch who wrote (2134)	1/7/1998 4:37:00 AM
From: Z Analyzer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9256

Stitch or Gus, Any idea what percentage of the investment by Maxtor in their China facility has already been made. Interestingly, if half had already been expended, with the drop in the won and given that most of the equipment is probably purchased in dollars, the remaining cost in won to complete the project would be the same as when the project began-at a time when capital should be increasingly difficult to obtain. Also, if they were to back out and sell the facility, assuming it is useful to others, this translates back into twice as many won. Any idea how far along Maxtor is with the project and whether there is any chance of the plug being pulled?