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To: Frodo Baxter who wrote (7781)	4/25/1998 3:35:00 PM
From: Tom Simpson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9124

<(P.S. to Sam, it was Seagate, not Maxtor, that was at fault here. <What's wrong with a little destruction derby if it wrings out all the <marginal players and fixes the supply problems for good? Lawrence, I just can't quite figure this out, maybe you can help. We have Seagate at fault here....for doing precisely what and when? Looking at Seagate's numbers, which have some confirming support in the RAID VAR's sales and inventories, Seagate's particular gyrations have been in the highend market where QNTM and WDC are bit players. In the desktop arena it is Maxtors and the ubiquitous DeskStars I keep running into. How does Seagate get stuck with this particular rap? Best Regards....Tom

To: Frodo Baxter who wrote (7781)	4/27/1998 11:41:00 AM
From: Sam	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9124

"P.S. to Sam, it was Seagate, not Maxtor, that was at fault here. They didn't slow production when they lost share, so they destroyed the market, and took down WDC and Maxtor with them." Well, I don't think it was quite as simple as that. Seagate was certainly at fault for a lot of things (i.e., misforcasting, yes, but even worse was building lousy drives and not getting their inventory of TFI and MR parts right, and making a lousy transition to the latter; they were apparently sitting on their hands. No excuse there, especially when they knew that their high end dominance was going to be attacked soon). But no one to my knowledge dreamt that Maxtor and Fujitsu would expand the way did, and increase their market share. All three of the erstwhile Big Three were simply assuming that things would continue to go on the way they had been for the previous two years or so. Stupid assumption, obviously (mine, too, so I can cast some stones here). Lots of "blame" to go around, not just SEG. But I do agree with your scorched earth suggestion. With the problems that their parents are having, I can't believe that either Fujitsu or Maxtor could take that much heat for very long. I am guessing too that all this that we hear about Maxtor cracking into black, and maybe Hyundai will hang on to them is some negotiating smoke to get a better price. I still don't believe that you can build a drive company with staying power in a year or two they way they did without some deep-pocketed fancy accounting (like financing plant and equipment with some abnormally cheap money). And now we know more about how Korea Inc was in way over their heads with their debt. I wonder how that debt is being accounted for now? Larry Saunders may not even know how much his drives really cost him.