Lawrence,
<<Softball. QNTM (6219) + WDC (13507) + MXTR (5578) + APM (8500) + RDRT (23107) + HMTT (2248) + KMAG (4689) + STMD (2400) = 66248, which is still much less than SEG's 87322.>>
Softball? Naw, what you really mean is "oranges" which is what you are trying to compare to my apple. You forgot the 34k folks who populate MKE and the head operation at QNTM. And while you are at it don't forget the folks at Fujitsu (Philippines, Yamaha,Nagano,Oregon, San Jose, and FDK.) Or how about Yamaha, SAE/TDK, and Ahead Tech.? Or Jabil, Transcapital, and a host of other contract manufacturers that Seagate does not employ. Then don't forget Maxmedia (who supplys nearly half of Maxtor's media now, or Kaifa, who makes head stacks for several of Seagate's competitors. (Aww, forget Kaifa...they supply substrates to Seagate so we will call it a wash. Ditto SAE who supplys heads to SEG). But then what about all the motor providers to Seagate's competitors? How many folks are at Xolox making voice coil motors? Gee whiz Lawrence, gimme a break.
Now; here are the numbers from IDC. Didn't bother with the arithmetic for the mobile market. Let me know what you think. (Check out their numbers for Samsung.)
Top five disk drive companies (IDC)
(by unit shipments 000s)
1997 1998**
Platform: MOBILE
IBM 6,131.0 6,089.0
Toshiba 5,369.0 5,282.0
Hitachi 1,158.6 2,469.0
Fujitsu 1,187.7 1,980.0
Seagate 898.0 390.0
Platform: DESKTOP
Quantum 24,876.5 37% 23,845.0 25%
Seagate 21,718.0 32% 21,945.0 23%
Western Digital 3,436.4 5% 18,115.0 19%
Maxtor 8,397.0 12% 16,485.0 17%
Fujitsu 9,165.8 14% 14,171.7 15%
67,593.7 94,561.7
Platform: HIGH END
Seagate 7,549.5 48% 7,226.0 41%
IBM 5,406.0 34% 6,166.0 35%
Quantum 1,317.0 8% 1,709.0 10%
Fujitsu 860.6 5% 1,342.0 8%
Western Digital 697.5 4% 1,255.0 7%
15,830.6 17,698.0
COMBINED PLATFORM
SALES
Seagate 30,165.5 25% 29,561.0 22%
Quantum 26,193.5 22% 25,554.0 19%
Western Digital 24,194.4 20% 19,370.0 15%
Fujitsu 11,214.1 9% 17,493.7 13%
IBM 8,466.0 7% 16,485.0 12%
Samsung 14,481.0 12% 15,277.0 11%
4,539.0 4% 9,385.0 7%
119,253.5 133,125.7
**Forecast
Source: International Data Corp.
I agree that Seagate missed on desktop bigtime and lost the curve on the high end. I think that is a reason for an opportunity here. re: High end you said:<<"That means a natural share of 20% each." >> but that is not so intuitively clear to me.
<<One last thing. The performance gap between SCSI and IDE has narrowed tremendously, almost to the point of being purely an "interface" gap. Thus, I view common platform development as a likely eventuality. You think SEG doesn't know this? Their Big Bear comes in both IDE and SCSI, offers comparable performance to a Cuda 9LP, and costs considerably less. Over time, this means the gross margin premium that SCSI demands will probably disappear. Which HD maker has historically gotten the most gravy from this premium?>>
Careful Lawrence...you are very close to laying your hands on an underlying reason for my cautious optimism (as distinctly different from "schadenfruede). You should read up a bit on fibre channel. One caution: IBM's Seascape and the fragmentation in corp. storage solutions market. I am also a little concerned about Al's personal relationship with Dick Egan at EMC. I hope that recent regains at EMC by Seagate are not threatened by the change in watch post.
Best,
Stitch |
