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

To: Stitch who wrote (3019)	4/24/1998 12:33:00 PM
From: Mark Oliver	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9256

If you wanted to venture a guess, what percentage of suspensions do you think IBM makes in house? Are there any sizeable in house suspension programs worth mentioning? Quantum seems to have reduced their inventory considerably. What's the word for the other companies? Regards, Mark

To: Stitch who wrote (3019)	4/24/1998 3:15:00 PM
From: Tom Simpson	Respond to of 9256

>IBM makes suspensions in Thailand. That doesn't preclude them from >buying from Hutch or anyone else however. The last time I looked IBM was 15% of HTCH revenue and on the rise as a percentage. Of course that might just reflect the relative collapse of HTCH's total revenue. Conclusion is that IBM buys a lot of HTCH suspensions, but they must be building a bunch themselves as well. The more interesting question at this particular juncture is whether IBM is taking HTCH TSA suspensions and if so, how many. Some of the early TSA development had some kind of joint relationship between HTCH and IBM, recognized about a year and a half ago by a payment from HTCH to IBM to clear the HTCH path to commercialization of it. Meanwhile IBM apparently has not let any grass grow under its feet and has apparently gone on to develop a certain level of TSA type capability for its own needs, which are considerable. It wouldn't be surprising if HTCH was supplying the actual suspension and IBM was applying their own trace structure to it for those. No doubt HTCH would just love to supply all of IBM's suspension needs, but even IBM has to worry about too much dependence. Indeed, at this point, its not quite established that HTCH has yet mastered the ability to make these particular kinds of parts in volume. Best Regards.....Tom