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

To: Yogi - Paul who wrote (5496)	2/9/1999 4:55:00 PM
From: Stitch	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 9256

Yogi; <<LT mentioned in a post that Dataquest is projecting a further decline in heads/disks per drive. That's about the only statistic/projection that matters to me anymore when RDRT or KMAG is discussed. >> Just a thought for you to chew on here. Dataquest doesn't forecast components. John Monroe is an astute analyst with great credentials but in the end, the primary forecasters of heads are Peripheral Research and TrendFocus. Both have recently hedged on the average component count a bit, based on the perception they were originally too bullish on the advent of GMR. But in general, if the industry continues its inexorable areal density improvements then average component count will surely fall, unless, of course, there is demand for more raw capacity. In this regard, virtually all the analysts agree. There is increasing demand for capacity in the corporate sector and nascent applications such as video/multi-media etc. Aside from the discussion of average components per drive, there is the raw unit growth issue. All the analysts again agree. IDC, PRC, DataQuest,TrendFocus, and even the venerable Jim Porter have increased unit estimates recently. This after they got surprised that the DD companies shipped an astounding 42M drives in the fourth quarter. The real questions still lie on the supply side. Excess capacity, time-to-market, asset utilization, cost containment, etc etc. Those are the key issues IMO. Demand is there. Always has been IMO. I like your SEG buy but scratch my head over your sale of CPQ. I thought you were the large cap steady Eddy type. <G> And a short on RDRT? Is this the new Yogi? I thought I was the only one stupid enough to play this beleaguered group like this. Its a thrill ride, no? Best, Stitch