Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : Gorilla and King Portfolio Candidates -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mike Buckley who wrote (697)	3/7/1999 11:01:00 AM
From: Bahama	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

Hello Mike, I'd second the nomination for "non-gorilla" W/R/T BRCM. Yes, I know what their CEO says about them becoming the next Intel. I tend to turn my "all-pass" filter on when listening to CxO's. As for not being gorilla material, I'd cite the fact that most if not all their products are designed to industry standards, meaning they WILL have many competitors, and most of the products WILL be commodities. It's probably more correct to say that their products will be included in end-consumer products that will be commodities, since the end consumer won't likely have a brand preference for BRCM unless they mount some successful "Broadcom Inside" campaign. No proprietary architecture with high switching costs. As you said, it's possible things may change in the future, but they'd need to enter some entirely new market in order to gain those advantages. re:<< even their high-end storage, could become commoditized.>> I'm not sure I follow since "high-end" by definition isn't commoditizable (is that a word? it is now:o)) because high-end is a small percentage of the market. Did your friend elaborate any, perhaps suggesting companies and product scenarios? thanks.

To: Mike Buckley who wrote (697)	3/7/1999 11:06:00 AM
From: Tony Viola	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

Mike, Re: "On that note, a good friend suggests that the biggest threat to EMC becoming a gorilla is that storage, even their high-end storage, could become commoditized." Interesting, but I don't know. EMC is differentiating themselves now with software that enables customers to do things like protect, migrate and/or share data across mainframes, Windows NT and UNIX systems, etc., etc. CEO Ruettgers said a couple of weeks ago that EMC was the fastest growing "software" company, currently at about a half billion in software sales a year. As long as EMC can continue to invest in R&D and keep themselves differentiated through software, maybe also hardware, I don't see any commoditization of top end storage. Competition from IBM, Sun, Compaq, yes. Good article about EMC in March 15 issue of Business Week. Tony