At the current level of market share Apple has, they manage to just break even. Apple has to pay for a lot of R&D on its systems, and the cost that is born by a single sale is inversely proportional to the number of sales.
Conclusion:
If Apple loses anymore market share they will have to raise prices to cover per machine costs ( R&D, adverising etc ). If they raise prices, they will loose sales, and they will enter a sprial of diminishing market share untill they go bankrupt.
The inverse of this applies. If Apple increases market share, they can reduce prices because costs like R&D, and marketing, can be amortised across a larger number of sales.
The critical assumption is that price will significantly impact sales ( positively, or negatively ). I believe this is true. Anecdotaley, many people arent buying Mac's because they cant afford to, not because they dont want to.
I think this points towards Apple's need to get a cheap machine out there for the masses. They have managed to keep the iBook cheap, now they need to push hard on the eMac or iMac.
Not enough. Those cheap machines need to be fully featured, expandable (that means CPU and GPU and choice of monitor) and fast relative to the PC competition.
Right now, the consumer machines, while being too expensive, are also too slow and completely unexpandable. RAM and USB/firewire don't count, all decent PC's come with these as well.
The reason why business and industry are so apt to choose the PC over the Macintosh is that there are Millions of developers and Thousands of private development firms that do nothing but make custom software solutions.
If Apple really wants to break into business and industry, they need to make sure that a Cocoa Programming Solution is taught at every major Community College and University in this country. They need to ENCOURAGE people to take the courses (re: discount on Hardware), and to become certified.</strong><hr></blockquote>
This is a good point. Unfortunately, it's hard to start OS X development courses all over the place if OS X developers are relatively rare. Big Nerd Ranch has the model they have and the prices they have because they aren't exactly mobbed with applicants.
It's a vicious cycle.
I think that's why Apple is pushing Cocoa so hard: It's a RAD platform that scales up nicely to enterprise development. It's why they have Java on board. REALBasic, with its (intentional) similarity to Visual Basic, is another advantage, and so is FileMaker.
All they have to do is get people using them.
Also, their Windows integration still needs some work. If they can make it seamless, it'll be much better than Windows is. I just spent today in an office wired for 100 Base-T, with an 802.11b wireless node covering the whole office on top of that, working on a file on a network share... and I still had to pass data to the guy I was working with on a floppy because no one could figure out how to get his laptop to fully acknowledge the network. No wonder Dell still ships their laptops with the silly things.
[quote]<strong>Would a less-expensive Macintosh be able to sell more easily to more consumers who would, in turn, purchase more Macintosh products in the future and "sell" the MacOS platform to others?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Maybe, but if Apple can get into business, and claw themselves back into growing their market share in education, they can convince more people to consider Macs for their own use, and vice versa. Network effects trump prices.
Can you imagine what would happen if Apple introduced a G3 box for $799? Or even a G4 box for $1099? The flood of orders would be overwhelming...there are an awful lot of 8660/9600/B&W towers out there that are just waiting to upgrade. Sadly, and as mentioned above, there is not enough chip differentiation to prevent the cannibalization of the iMac nor G4 tower market should Apple follow that path. It would sure boost market share but, at the expense of profits. Thus, it would be suicidal. If Apple raised the curtain on such an inexpensive box you can bet that a 970 based machine sits beside it behind yet another curtain.
If rumors start to surface of a cheap headless Mac coming at MWSF then it ought to tip everyone to the fact that the 970 will also debut.
Personal Mac history: Plus, Centris 610, 4400, 8600, B&W , 970. In case anyone cares.
<strong>Can you imagine what would happen if Apple introduced a G3 box for $799? Or even a G4 box for $1099? The flood of orders would be overwhelming...there are an awful lot of 8660/9600/B&W towers out there that are just waiting to upgrade. Sadly, and as mentioned above, there is not enough chip differentiation to prevent the cannibalization of the iMac nor G4 tower market should Apple follow that path. It would sure boost market share but, at the expense of profits. Thus, it would be suicidal. If Apple raised the curtain on such an inexpensive box you can bet that a 970 based machine sits beside it behind yet another curtain.
If rumors start to surface of a cheap headless Mac coming at MWSF then it ought to tip everyone to the fact that the 970 will also debut.
Personal Mac history: Plus, Centris 610, 4400, 8600, B&W , 970. In case anyone cares.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I disagree. There'd be no flood of orders. If they were half what WinTel is, which would be $200 per box, they still wouldn't get to 15% market share.
Frankly "some" people need to get the idea, this is business.
Using scavy terms like "elasticity" and "profit margins" basically economic and business terms works to a person's creditbility in this case because it show they have an idea what plays out in a comference room. WHERE THEY DISCUSS THIS.
Yes even the(IMHO) majorly flawed senerio of "Stagflation Steve" get discussed in conferences before getting hands down rejected. Firstly. Dell's a repackager Apple is clearly not. Second, Dell is an economy of scale company, Apple isn't. Thirdly business models don't get done in in 4 WEEKS. Missing the buying season by far.
Apple main goal, if they wish to counter this, is to think smart, and think different. There is a basical principal that PRICE CUTTING is the LAST opinion in a counterattack for any BUSINESS.
This issue is much to complex even without the facts. But the obvious choice already shows(as with past history) don't follow Dell unless you're Dell. Many companies learned this the hard way.
You don't slam into a 500 pound gorrilla because it's slamming into you.
I disagree. There'd be no flood of orders. If they were half what WinTel is, which would be $200 per box, they still wouldn't get to 15% market share.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Would you care to explain the flood of orders for the new $999 iBook?
When Apple fights on price, they have no difficulty selling Macs, there is no reason to believe their ability to sell credible notebook wouldn't be mirrored if they were to come to the table with a credible desktop
Remember, it worked with the original iMac, unfortunetly the market changed and Apple didn't change with it, thus it's current position.
[ 11-20-2002: Message edited by: Stagflation Steve ]</p>
Unless Apple offers a competitive entry level desktop they are screwed, Apple has no trouble offering competitive notebook systems,
If Apple can make an inexpensive and competitive laptop, why the **** can't they make a desktop?
my customers ask me that day-in-day-out
Take the guts out of the iBook, stick it in a white box, sell it without a monitor for $599 and everyone is happy!</strong><hr></blockquote>
First off, I agree with you that Apple needs a lower priced desktop. I know of many large orders sold to education accounts were going for around $1K 2 years about and were about $900 last year. I don't know about this year, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was around your $599 price. This is a moving figure. Next year it may be $500 or maybe the Gateway $399 as mentioned in this tread title. It also could go up. Quite a few people don't seem to understand that although the general trend in computers is to go downward in price, and upward in features and power, that prices also sometimes go higher. The PC industery is not immune to the laws of supply and demand. PC manufacturers, especially Dell, are better at concealing these price increases as they tend to discontinue older cheaper products and replace them with higher priced models when prices go up. I do suspect that prices will go to higher levels once the market bottoms out and enough companies go out of business. Fewer companies producing products=less supply. However, I do not believe that prices will ever return to the high levels Apple is used to.
I do recall some rumors last year of very low Macs that could only run OSX. I wonder what happened to them. The were probably bogus, but I wonder if there is/was some truth to them.
I do believe one of the biggest missed opportunies of Apple is that they have a much closer relationship to IBM and Motorola through AIM than Intel has with its customers. Apple could have had a custom G3 made simular to the embeded PowerPCs and did an end run to go where Intel won't go, but VIA did, to make a very low cost Mac. Sadly that just isn't something in Apple's blood.
There has been some comment of Mac users switching to Wintel. I suspect that many of them are OS 9 users who see the change to OS X as big as the change to Windows and it is a good time to jump ship.
Something to remember. Dell, Intel, and Microsoft are not doing what they are currently doing for your benefit, they are doing it for their own. What has happened to the computer industry is freaking awesome for the consumer, but it won't last. We are being played.
There has been some comment of Mac users switching to Wintel. I suspect that many of them are OS 9 users who see the change to OS X as big as the change to Windows and it is a good time to jump ship.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
I know several who switched, and they all had the same reason, price. They have simple computer needs, and use their computer to do email, word processing and run preschool kid games in some cases. They all had older PPC and 68K Macs and felt a need to upgrade a bit -- bigger hard drive, faster modem and all the little things that have improved over the last few years. They liked the Mac, but a low priced Windows PC was irresistible.
Economies of scale are there for anyone who can create the neccessary scale. IF Apple, with money in the bank, and an exceedingly loyal customer base (one now distilled nearly to its most fanatical followers) finds this proposition too risky, then it's too risky for anyone. 2 out of every 3 computer makers should already be out of business by that logic. And who knows, they may be shortly, but let's keep it brief for now.
Competing on price never killed anyone except those who proved unable to do it. That means you can't get stupid, sell at a loss, not have alternate revenue streams in place (software, services, support, institutional, etc etc). If Apple does not have those structures in place, that's not Steve's fault, it's Apple's, and it points to poor long range forcasting on their part.
<strong>That's not so far out there, negativity aside.
..(one now distilled nearly to its most fanatical followers)... </strong><hr></blockquote>
I agree with your post completely. The thing that troubles me the most is this statement and I have realized this over the last few days, it is true.
People, the Macintosh group is getting smaller and smaller. At the current trend rate (unless new numbers show the bleeding differently) Apple will be another Commodore, NeXT, Be in a few years - ought of business or bought out.
Sad. I've helped 4 people now to switch since September '02 or so.
Apple has got to change somewhere. It got to address this. New products, new prices, new something, and it has to been real soon.
Apple has got to change somewhere. It got to address this. New products, new prices, new something, and it has to been real soon.</strong><hr></blockquote>
mm, I guess you missed the SuperDrive PB update, it addressed most of your issues.
the $399 PC after rebate... I'm going to say about $450 since a LARGE number of people don't send in their rebates.. so they figure they have about $450 to work with.
About $35 will go to Microsoft for licensing XP Home.. do you really think they pay retail? Of course not...
Case manufacturered will cost them $10 or less (probably less).
Chip from intel celeron 1.8 is probably around $60 in lots of 1000 for them.
The mobo made by them with video and sound integrated will be less than $35.
40GB drive is no doubt a 5400 clunker at about $35. (remember these are their approximate costs)
128ram.. haha.. $10 or less.
CD burner $30 their price.
They have an arrangement with AOL I'm sure... probably less than $50 for the year with AOL... (you have to remember AOL Marketing currently spews out over $500 per customer aquisition.
$035 to microsoft
$010 for the case
$060 for the Intel Celeron
$035 for mobo costs
$035 for 40GB drive
$010 for 128 ram
$030 for CDRW
$050 for AOL
$030 for marketing
$020 for packaging, kb, mouse, manuals, etc, etc
$315 or so if my calculations are correct. Give a leeway of $30 or so either way. They're still making money on these things. Of course I might have missed a few things.. like I'm not sure of modem or ethernet was installed (modem probably is)... the licensing for other programs if in there, $3 for a floppy... $3 for al the cables... $5 for the powersupply... etc
mm, I guess you missed the SuperDrive PB update, it addressed most of your issues.</strong><hr></blockquote>
A superdrive in the powerbook is not going to turn 3% marketshare into 20% marketshare.
Apple needs to eat it own dogfood and "think different" if it wants to survive. Jobs is milking the Macintosh for all its worth and its future is starting to look like the failures of Be, NeXT and Commodore. Cute little niche computers that do a tiny little thing. They all failed.
Apple needs to introduce a computer in the sub $500 space if it wants to increase its marketshare. Even if the margins are 5%.
2/3rds gone, no not yet. Maybe when this has bottomed out, but I doubt it would go that far. You did pick a pretty large number to be on the safe side for your argument, but the changes don't need to be so drastic, even a 10% to 20% change would be a big effect on the market. Go to a store and look at Computer Shopper compare that mag to the phone book size thing it used to be. Many of those companies have switched to web based sales, but several are gone. Go to a Compusa and see who is there and not there anymore.
Gateway on the way out.
eMachines on life support
Packard Bell gone
IBM left the PC consumer market
Acer no longer in the US market, I think they are still in the Asian ones
If Compaq hadn't merged with HP they would be on this list.
Toshiba has a much reduced presence on the desktop side
Sun in trouble
Silicon Graphics in deep trouble
On the parts side
Creative Labs loosing money
3Com loosing money
Adaptec loosing money
Micron Technology loosing money
ATI loosing money
Visiontek has had their assets seized by their creditors
Number 9 gone
Diamond bought video chipset maker S3, then it left the video card business and modem business, changed their name to Sonicblue and is loosing money
IBM sold its hard drive division which has been loosing money for about 2 years to Hitachi
Quantum sold its hard drive division to Maxstor and now mainly sells tape drives is loosing money
Maxstor is loosing money
Hynix should have died a while ago.
AMD in trouble, may survive
Transmeta bleeding
I haven't listed the many of the Asian and European companies, I don't have the numbers for them. Several of these companies will turnaround and survive. Some will be bought out. Some won't survive.
Comments
[ 11-20-2002: Message edited by: Paul ]</p>
<strong>this thread(the idea of this thread) is in the news: <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/ptech/11/20/cheap.pcs.ap/index.html"; target="_blank">CNN</a>
[ 11-20-2002: Message edited by: Paul ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
The Dell 2300 was too cheap to pass up.
At the current level of market share Apple has, they manage to just break even. Apple has to pay for a lot of R&D on its systems, and the cost that is born by a single sale is inversely proportional to the number of sales.
Conclusion:
If Apple loses anymore market share they will have to raise prices to cover per machine costs ( R&D, adverising etc ). If they raise prices, they will loose sales, and they will enter a sprial of diminishing market share untill they go bankrupt.
The inverse of this applies. If Apple increases market share, they can reduce prices because costs like R&D, and marketing, can be amortised across a larger number of sales.
The critical assumption is that price will significantly impact sales ( positively, or negatively ). I believe this is true. Anecdotaley, many people arent buying Mac's because they cant afford to, not because they dont want to.
I think this points towards Apple's need to get a cheap machine out there for the masses. They have managed to keep the iBook cheap, now they need to push hard on the eMac or iMac.
Right now, the consumer machines, while being too expensive, are also too slow and completely unexpandable. RAM and USB/firewire don't count, all decent PC's come with these as well.
<strong>The Alternative?
The reason why business and industry are so apt to choose the PC over the Macintosh is that there are Millions of developers and Thousands of private development firms that do nothing but make custom software solutions.
If Apple really wants to break into business and industry, they need to make sure that a Cocoa Programming Solution is taught at every major Community College and University in this country. They need to ENCOURAGE people to take the courses (re: discount on Hardware), and to become certified.</strong><hr></blockquote>
This is a good point. Unfortunately, it's hard to start OS X development courses all over the place if OS X developers are relatively rare. Big Nerd Ranch has the model they have and the prices they have because they aren't exactly mobbed with applicants.
It's a vicious cycle.
I think that's why Apple is pushing Cocoa so hard: It's a RAD platform that scales up nicely to enterprise development. It's why they have Java on board. REALBasic, with its (intentional) similarity to Visual Basic, is another advantage, and so is FileMaker.
All they have to do is get people using them.
Also, their Windows integration still needs some work. If they can make it seamless, it'll be much better than Windows is.
[quote]<strong>Would a less-expensive Macintosh be able to sell more easily to more consumers who would, in turn, purchase more Macintosh products in the future and "sell" the MacOS platform to others?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Maybe, but if Apple can get into business, and claw themselves back into growing their market share in education, they can convince more people to consider Macs for their own use, and vice versa. Network effects trump prices.
If rumors start to surface of a cheap headless Mac coming at MWSF then it ought to tip everyone to the fact that the 970 will also debut.
Personal Mac history: Plus, Centris 610, 4400, 8600, B&W , 970.
<strong>Can you imagine what would happen if Apple introduced a G3 box for $799? Or even a G4 box for $1099? The flood of orders would be overwhelming...there are an awful lot of 8660/9600/B&W towers out there that are just waiting to upgrade. Sadly, and as mentioned above, there is not enough chip differentiation to prevent the cannibalization of the iMac nor G4 tower market should Apple follow that path. It would sure boost market share but, at the expense of profits. Thus, it would be suicidal. If Apple raised the curtain on such an inexpensive box you can bet that a 970 based machine sits beside it behind yet another curtain.
If rumors start to surface of a cheap headless Mac coming at MWSF then it ought to tip everyone to the fact that the 970 will also debut.
Personal Mac history: Plus, Centris 610, 4400, 8600, B&W , 970.
I disagree. There'd be no flood of orders. If they were half what WinTel is, which would be $200 per box, they still wouldn't get to 15% market share.
Frankly "some" people need to get the idea, this is business.
Using scavy terms like "elasticity" and "profit margins" basically economic and business terms works to a person's creditbility in this case because it show they have an idea what plays out in a comference room. WHERE THEY DISCUSS THIS.
Yes even the(IMHO) majorly flawed senerio of "Stagflation Steve" get discussed in conferences before getting hands down rejected. Firstly. Dell's a repackager Apple is clearly not. Second, Dell is an economy of scale company, Apple isn't. Thirdly business models don't get done in in 4 WEEKS. Missing the buying season by far.
Apple main goal, if they wish to counter this, is to think smart, and think different. There is a basical principal that PRICE CUTTING is the LAST opinion in a counterattack for any BUSINESS.
This issue is much to complex even without the facts. But the obvious choice already shows(as with past history) don't follow Dell unless you're Dell. Many companies learned this the hard way.
You don't slam into a 500 pound gorrilla because it's slamming into you.
~Kuku
<strong>
I disagree. There'd be no flood of orders. If they were half what WinTel is, which would be $200 per box, they still wouldn't get to 15% market share.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Would you care to explain the flood of orders for the new $999 iBook?
When Apple fights on price, they have no difficulty selling Macs, there is no reason to believe their ability to sell credible notebook wouldn't be mirrored if they were to come to the table with a credible desktop
Remember, it worked with the original iMac, unfortunetly the market changed and Apple didn't change with it, thus it's current position.
[ 11-20-2002: Message edited by: Stagflation Steve ]</p>
<strong>Dell is an economy of scale company, Apple isn't</strong><hr></blockquote>
If Apple were to get off it's ass and begin to make even a passive credible attempt to sell macs, Apple to could benefit from the economics of scale
<strong>
Unless Apple offers a competitive entry level desktop they are screwed, Apple has no trouble offering competitive notebook systems,
If Apple can make an inexpensive and competitive laptop, why the **** can't they make a desktop?
my customers ask me that day-in-day-out
Take the guts out of the iBook, stick it in a white box, sell it without a monitor for $599 and everyone is happy!</strong><hr></blockquote>
First off, I agree with you that Apple needs a lower priced desktop. I know of many large orders sold to education accounts were going for around $1K 2 years about and were about $900 last year. I don't know about this year, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was around your $599 price. This is a moving figure. Next year it may be $500 or maybe the Gateway $399 as mentioned in this tread title. It also could go up. Quite a few people don't seem to understand that although the general trend in computers is to go downward in price, and upward in features and power, that prices also sometimes go higher. The PC industery is not immune to the laws of supply and demand. PC manufacturers, especially Dell, are better at concealing these price increases as they tend to discontinue older cheaper products and replace them with higher priced models when prices go up. I do suspect that prices will go to higher levels once the market bottoms out and enough companies go out of business. Fewer companies producing products=less supply. However, I do not believe that prices will ever return to the high levels Apple is used to.
I do recall some rumors last year of very low Macs that could only run OSX. I wonder what happened to them. The were probably bogus, but I wonder if there is/was some truth to them.
I do believe one of the biggest missed opportunies of Apple is that they have a much closer relationship to IBM and Motorola through AIM than Intel has with its customers. Apple could have had a custom G3 made simular to the embeded PowerPCs and did an end run to go where Intel won't go, but VIA did, to make a very low cost Mac. Sadly that just isn't something in Apple's blood.
There has been some comment of Mac users switching to Wintel. I suspect that many of them are OS 9 users who see the change to OS X as big as the change to Windows and it is a good time to jump ship.
Something to remember. Dell, Intel, and Microsoft are not doing what they are currently doing for your benefit, they are doing it for their own. What has happened to the computer industry is freaking awesome for the consumer, but it won't last. We are being played.
<strong>
There has been some comment of Mac users switching to Wintel. I suspect that many of them are OS 9 users who see the change to OS X as big as the change to Windows and it is a good time to jump ship.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
I know several who switched, and they all had the same reason, price. They have simple computer needs, and use their computer to do email, word processing and run preschool kid games in some cases. They all had older PPC and 68K Macs and felt a need to upgrade a bit -- bigger hard drive, faster modem and all the little things that have improved over the last few years. They liked the Mac, but a low priced Windows PC was irresistible.
If Apple were to get off it's ass and begin to make even a passive credible attempt to sell macs, Apple to could benefit from the economics of scale
<hr></blockquote>
Sorry, but that proves it, Stagflation Steve is talking up its rear.
Please revise and review basic knowledge of economic principals (If you took it before even).
I think most people can ignore this poster, it's like picking on the defenseless.
~Kuku
[ 11-21-2002: Message edited by: Kuku ]</p>
Economies of scale are there for anyone who can create the neccessary scale. IF Apple, with money in the bank, and an exceedingly loyal customer base (one now distilled nearly to its most fanatical followers) finds this proposition too risky, then it's too risky for anyone. 2 out of every 3 computer makers should already be out of business by that logic. And who knows, they may be shortly, but let's keep it brief for now.
Competing on price never killed anyone except those who proved unable to do it. That means you can't get stupid, sell at a loss, not have alternate revenue streams in place (software, services, support, institutional, etc etc). If Apple does not have those structures in place, that's not Steve's fault, it's Apple's, and it points to poor long range forcasting on their part.
<strong>That's not so far out there, negativity aside.
..(one now distilled nearly to its most fanatical followers)... </strong><hr></blockquote>
I agree with your post completely. The thing that troubles me the most is this statement and I have realized this over the last few days, it is true.
People, the Macintosh group is getting smaller and smaller. At the current trend rate (unless new numbers show the bleeding differently) Apple will be another Commodore, NeXT, Be in a few years - ought of business or bought out.
Sad. I've helped 4 people now to switch since September '02 or so.
Apple has got to change somewhere. It got to address this. New products, new prices, new something, and it has to been real soon.
<strong>
Apple has got to change somewhere. It got to address this. New products, new prices, new something, and it has to been real soon.</strong><hr></blockquote>
mm, I guess you missed the SuperDrive PB update, it addressed most of your issues.
About $35 will go to Microsoft for licensing XP Home.. do you really think they pay retail? Of course not...
Case manufacturered will cost them $10 or less (probably less).
Chip from intel celeron 1.8 is probably around $60 in lots of 1000 for them.
The mobo made by them with video and sound integrated will be less than $35.
40GB drive is no doubt a 5400 clunker at about $35. (remember these are their approximate costs)
128ram.. haha.. $10 or less.
CD burner $30 their price.
They have an arrangement with AOL I'm sure... probably less than $50 for the year with AOL... (you have to remember AOL Marketing currently spews out over $500 per customer aquisition.
$035 to microsoft
$010 for the case
$060 for the Intel Celeron
$035 for mobo costs
$035 for 40GB drive
$010 for 128 ram
$030 for CDRW
$050 for AOL
$030 for marketing
$020 for packaging, kb, mouse, manuals, etc, etc
$315 or so if my calculations are correct. Give a leeway of $30 or so either way. They're still making money on these things. Of course I might have missed a few things.. like I'm not sure of modem or ethernet was installed (modem probably is)... the licensing for other programs if in there, $3 for a floppy... $3 for al the cables... $5 for the powersupply... etc
<strong>
mm, I guess you missed the SuperDrive PB update, it addressed most of your issues.</strong><hr></blockquote>
A superdrive in the powerbook is not going to turn 3% marketshare into 20% marketshare.
Apple needs to eat it own dogfood and "think different" if it wants to survive. Jobs is milking the Macintosh for all its worth and its future is starting to look like the failures of Be, NeXT and Commodore. Cute little niche computers that do a tiny little thing. They all failed.
Apple needs to introduce a computer in the sub $500 space if it wants to increase its marketshare. Even if the margins are 5%.
Gateway on the way out.
eMachines on life support
Packard Bell gone
IBM left the PC consumer market
Acer no longer in the US market, I think they are still in the Asian ones
If Compaq hadn't merged with HP they would be on this list.
Toshiba has a much reduced presence on the desktop side
Sun in trouble
Silicon Graphics in deep trouble
On the parts side
Creative Labs loosing money
3Com loosing money
Adaptec loosing money
Micron Technology loosing money
ATI loosing money
Visiontek has had their assets seized by their creditors
Number 9 gone
Diamond bought video chipset maker S3, then it left the video card business and modem business, changed their name to Sonicblue and is loosing money
IBM sold its hard drive division which has been loosing money for about 2 years to Hitachi
Quantum sold its hard drive division to Maxstor and now mainly sells tape drives is loosing money
Maxstor is loosing money
Hynix should have died a while ago.
AMD in trouble, may survive
Transmeta bleeding
I haven't listed the many of the Asian and European companies, I don't have the numbers for them. Several of these companies will turnaround and survive. Some will be bought out. Some won't survive.