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

To: Mark Oliver who wrote (2670)	3/5/1998 1:35:00 PM
From: Chuck Bleakney	Read Replies (5) \| Respond to of 9256

The great majority of end users are not knowledgeable enough to build their PC from components... so the internet sales link is mostly useful for system upgrades and you still have to be comfortable with the process for adding in a disk drive. It is a task that is daunting to most of the technically challenged ;o) . Direct sales can't and won't happen on a large scale until the disk drive is simply a "brick" that can be added by anyone. Give us a few more years and we may actually be there... but not just yet. I too am concerned about the direction things are going... but you have to compete to be a "player". It's a classic "No pain, no gain" philosophy. This is not a marketplace for the timid. I don't see the under $500 PC market as viable in the long term unless they eliminate mass storage devices entirely. I don't believe anyone can make money on a sub $100 DD. Especially when its difficult to do so on a sub $200 one. We simply bleed until someone dies... Question is, who's going to die first? Chuck

To: Mark Oliver who wrote (2670)	3/5/1998 3:20:00 PM
From: Pierre-X	Respond to of 9256

Re: DELL, INTC, CSCO You said: It seems to me that Intel is just getting started with the problems storage stocks have been facing for the last 6 months. I wonder why this has taken so long to happen? What's happened to the HDD sector will not happen to INTC. The industries are not comparable. INTC proceeds from a position of far, far greater strength due to their market dominance, massive margins, and significant franchise value. The HDD companies have none of these. You said: Mike Murphy, a total butthead IMHO, suggests the low cost computers will play into IDT's hand with their new processor. That's ignorance talking. It's one thing to have a processor, it's quite another to be able to make money with it, as amply shown by Cyrix and AMD. You said: With chips, advanced manufacturing techniques such as finer line widths and larger wafer processes allow the skillful to make money. Where do we see these kinds of advances in manufacturing technique in storage? You seem to imply that storage technology has not kept up with chips. That's a debatable point. You said: If Dell and Cisco can sell a billion dollars per year, why can't drive makers get some low cost direct marketing going? Simple. Franchise value. Dell and Cisco have it, the HDDs don't. And they won't for the foreseeable future. God bless, PX