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

To: Leto who wrote (27428)	12/26/1998 11:07:00 PM
From: Big Bucks	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 70976

Leto, Thanks for the insight into Hitachi's woes, I suspect that they are not the only major Japanese manufacturer that has lost billions over the last couple of years. I agree with your opinion on CPU's as commodity products. As profit margins dwindle (as competition among the box makers increases) the physical dimensions of the end product will decrease also. National Semiconductor's push to integrate multiple feature functionality onto a single piece of silicon will soon come under pressure from the likes of INTC and AMD over course of the next year. The manufacturer that can offer the most integrated features as a single chip/module product will lead the pack into the low cost commodity computer business. As for flat panel it will likely be several years before it is as cost effective as a standard monitor. A thrifty consumer can get a 17" monitor for around $300-350, I'm not sure what a 17" flat panel costs but suspect it is at least 2x-5x the cost of a monitor, so I see no compelling reason to think that flat panels will have the allure, except for the high end of the market, unless prices become competitive. I think the Personal Data Assistant will soon become a necessity/mainstay, once they have the full functionality of a standard computer incorporated into them. Just think, they would replace todays laptops if they had the same functionality and built in universal docking capability. It would be essential for businesses/homes to maintain docking stations while the actual compact form computer moved around with its owner. Some of the new digital phones have built in functions like beeper, fax/messaging, clock, phone and short range radio, and there will soon be tele-conferencing/tv incorporated. I suspect that soon the PDA's will incorporate all this functionality and more into a single product that sells for less than $800 (minus docking station). The downside to all this is that as more functionality is built into each silicon chip it will diminish the need for many specialized silicon chips that are prevalent today, the upside is that these "super chips" will be mass produced very cheaply which is good for the leading manufacturers, product manufacturers and consumers. Just my opinion, BB

To: Leto who wrote (27428)	12/27/1998 8:53:00 AM
From: Jerome	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

Leto, <<Flat Panel Displays>> My readings on this area indicate that this will be the next big consumer item. An indirect play in this area is Photon (PHTN), they make test equipment specifically for FPD's. According to the last quarterly report they have a BTB of +2.0. (Quarterly sales of $4 mil and backorder of $9.2 Mil.) On Thursday, one of the slowest trading days of the year PHTN traded 106K shares, five times the normal vol. and finished up 11/16 at 5 1/4. The company that AMAT sold their last big order to was for the manufacture of FPD's. Philips (PHG) is building a new plant specifically for (FPD's) PHTN is increasing their sales efforts in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, in order to increase sales of their equipment sales in this area. The latest issue of Computer Shopper had an ad for a FPD 17" for $800.00. (I think it was Panasonic, I'm not sure. I don't have the ambition to search through hundreds of pages to find that ad BB is correct about the price. However, we all don't drive Escorts, even though that quality machine will get us to our destination, as quickly as a Lincoln Navigator. If anyone knows of other companies that are direct plays on the semi-equipment- FPD area please post some messages. A good New Year to all on this thread......Jerome