Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!rutgers!mailrus!ames!oliveb!orc.olivetti.com!teg
From: teg@orc.olivetti.com (Tom Griner)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: DRAM Prices...
Message-ID: <35818@oliveb.olivetti.com>
Date: 9 Jan 89 10:32:03 GMT
Sender: news@oliveb.olivetti.com
Reply-To: teg@orc.olivetti.com (Tom Griner)
Organization: Olivetti Research Center, Menlo Park, CA
Lines: 43


   Just a few more items to add to the stew:
I received a letter from a consortium of US computer
companies that stated that they felt Micron Technologies had
mislead the US government into beleiving that the Japaneese were
practicing unfair trade.  The letter indicated that the 
companies felt that Micron had lobbied for this for their own
gain.  Micron 'made a killing' when US DRAM prices went way
up because they were the only US manufacturer with a production
line still active at the time.  TI & Intel had to ramp up new
production lines because they had closed their old ones when
profit margins started getting low.  In fact, Intel made a
temporary agreement with Micron to second source Micron DRAMs
with the Intel label.

One of the reasons that Japaneese companies appeared to be dumping
chips is because they didn't want to get stuck with them as the
price goes down.  In the past few years, the Japaneese have been
on the forefront of new DRAM technology.  When they started selling
256K DRAMs at very cheap prices, they had already closed the 256K
DRAM production lines, and were getting the 1MB DRAMs going.  They
didn't want to be stuck with a surplus of 256K chips when they want
to concentrate their marketing on the 1MB parts.  4MB chips are
probably going into production now and the 1MB chips should drop
unless they are kept high by trade sanctions.

Being a 'consumer' I tend to dislike government intervention.  I
realize that unfair trade practices can hurt the US economy as
a whole, but the way I see it - When the government steps in
the consumer is forced to have some of his purchasing dollar
go to subsidize lawyers and government officials who organize
and argue over this mess as well as to US companies that may
be using inferior technology (subsidies hurt technological
progress).  I think in some respects the Japaneese are "proud"
that they have the latest technology.  They want to get rid of
the old DRAMs because they are yesterday's technology and 
it doesn't make Japan look like a "World Leader" when they
try to make money off of the old invetory.

Tom Griner    {decwrl, ucbvax, ...}!orc.olivetti.com!teg    frames 2 /dev/fb
TEG@Bionet-20.bio.net                  presto.ig.com!teg    flames 2 /dev/null
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