Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Clarksterh who wrote (17361)	3/8/1998 11:35:00 PM
From: akidron	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

1) the last figures I saw were that TCI would have 300,000 digital subs at the end of this year... (out of 10-12M) depending how you count.... they are I believe off this pace... the initial boxes are qwuite dumb and being sold below cost as far I I can tell... what is more the time warner system (which in my humble opinion is better) requires far less power at the set top end and more at the head end and they have the best profile of high end cosmopoliton subs... All I'm saying is that this is maybe a nice niche but with a projected deck top life of 5 years plus, this consumption will not a market make... Where I really disagree with you is in PC's... I just finished reading the CPQ thread... blame robbie 4 my interest.... I see it like this. Dell BTO system is the hifg margin low cost way to go... CPQ and IBM and HP and Micron and Packard bell hitchati have been trying to duplicate it without success... there lack of success has nothing to do with an inate inability to set up the systems, but half hearted desire as success in BTO will kill the dealerships where they dominate... to fend off dell CPQ invented the sub $1000 model... to do this they had to bring down costs so they went K6... only AMD doesn't make $$$$ at the curent K6 price point, so that the catogary itself became dependent on AMD and Cyrex's willingness to sustain losses to stay in the game.... so what does intel do... haveing misjudged the market it has no chioce but to cut the price of its chips to keep dell and gateway (intc inside shops) competitive... also to CPQ horror tha market really like the $1000 computer and the catogary starts to absorb high end sales... when dell reduces the prices of it's more elegant machines, and when the retail market migrates to the sub $1000 level CPQ find it has channels stuffed with higher price machines which it then has to discount... unfortunately to clear them they also have to reduce the price of the sub $1000 machine to do this or lose leadership along the way (else people just buy the newly reduced higher end machines) ... of course to do this they have to go back to AMD and request lower prices... which forecs intel to further reduce the prices of its own chip or lose even more market share.... the moral of the tale... the market will only cleanse itself if AMD goes bust (reducing the price pressure on INTC) or new chips with radically lower real cost are introduced... and even then the market will not balence until a couple of the box makers go bye bye... this is going to take time... meanwhile there will be ridiculous pressure on componant praces, dramm will be unable to recover and capex will suffer... in the scenario it is important to buy near the low otherwise you will be left holding paper losses for 8 to 12 months looking at other stocks wishing u were there.... I could be wrong... I've been very wrong before... but I did think it worth sharing!!!!! Ps dis u know that in england the tel cos pay u to have a handset.