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Technology Stocks : Seagate Technology -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Z Analyzer who wrote (4509)	1/12/1998 11:44:00 AM
From: stock bull	Respond to of 7841

IMO, low price PC's will eventually lead to an upgrade of DD's. A low end DD isn't going to serve the buyer of a low cost PC for very long. For example, if people with low priced PC's want to play some of the new games now on the market, they will need storage capacities that can handle game programs requiring 100 to 200 MB of storage space. Add a few of these games to your PC and see how fast the DD space disappears. People will either install higher capacity DD, or increase the sales of ZIP and JAZ drives. (That's one reason I like Iomega (IOM)). Stock Bull

To: Z Analyzer who wrote (4509)	1/14/1998 2:59:00 PM
From: Stitch	Respond to of 7841

Z, All: The following from today's S'Pore Times. More "fit into the shan" Seagate expected to announce major layoffs by end of week Industry circles cite across-the-board cuts of 20% By Jennifer Lien [SINGAPORE] Disk drive maker Seagate Technology, Singapore's second-largest private sector employer, is widelyexpected to announce a major retrenchment by the end of this week. The cuts are expected to be across the board, "from management level downwards", said a source. Other sources said some staff had been warned by managers to "get prepared" for layoffs, while other staff are expecting to be notified by Friday. A Seagate spokeswoman contacted in the US last night declined comment, saying only that "if Seagate was going to take an action, the company would make a formal statement". Industry rumours of Seagate cutting 20 per cent of its staff have been circulating for a week but have intensified in the last two days. BT has not been able to confirm the 20 per cent figure, which was cited yesterday by industry players as well as staff. One source said senior executives are believed to have been instructed to identify positions to be cut. Another source said at least one department's list has already been firmed up. "The feeling on the ground is that something big is coming, but we don't know when," said a staffer at Seagate's Ang Mo Kio disk drive plant. It was not clear yesterday if the cuts would be confined to the company's Ang Mo Kio plant or if they would affect Seagate's disk media and printed circuit board plants as well. The company's US-based chief of drive and media operations, Bill Watkins, is said to have been in Singapore since last week meeting senior staff. Seagate is a victim of what analysts call the worst disk drive industry slowdown in years, as keen competition and capacity overplanning resulted in excess inventory and plunging prices of disk drives and media. The company warned last week that it had made a "substantial" operating loss for the December quarter, adding that its restructuring charges would exceed US$300 million (S$532 million) instead of the US$100 million reported earlier. The company said in October that it was reviewing all its worldwide operations. Last month, it closed a plant in Clonmel, Ireland, shedding 1,400 jobs. In September, Seagate cut 500 contract labour positions at its Ang Mo Kio plant. But the drive maker's largest cutback here so far was in 1988, when it cut 800 non-production jobs, or 8 per cent of staff. That was due to falling sales and excess inventories. But barely five months later, the company was hiring another 1,000 staff to cope with rising demand. Seagate has since aggressively expanded its employment here, with the latest available tally from September standing at 18,000. Observers say these cuts are but the "tip of the iceberg" for Singapore's electronics industry, which is suffering from excess capacity, falling prices, lacklustre end-user demand, and the region's currency crisis.