Stephen J. Luczo
Analyst · Cross Research
Thanks, let me just make some notes, so I don't forget. On the first thing, on March pricing, I think, Steven, the mix assumptions -- look, we've been kind of off on mix for a couple of 3 quarters in a row here where the mix assumptions we've had, basically, don't come to fruition. And part, I think, is that's just because the pressure that the systems vendors are under to maintain margins. I think mix is -- the assumptions for mix are basically pretty conservative for the March quarter. So if there was actually an improvement in mix, which would be what we would hope, especially if there's any sort of recovery in March on the enterprise, then I think that the relatively flat ASPs, hopefully, will prove to be conservative. So we have tried to, at least this time, assume a pretty conservative view on mix, to say relatively flat ASPs, because as you know, obviously, with new products coming on and mix improving, it actually probably increase ASPs. On the macroeconomic situation and how long does it have to last for it to be really painful. That's a good question. And I would say if we had -- I guess, the question is do you have clarity on that it's going to be 9 to 12 months. If we knew it was going to be flat and weak for the next 9 to 12 months, we'd probably do one set of things. But if you're kind of making that decision quarter-to-quarter, you have a little bit less flexibility, obviously. But to answer your question, I think the good news is for the drive industry, or certainly, for Seagate, and I guess getting to be that way for WD and Hitachi, is for us, it's about absorbing heads and disks really. It's where most of our R&D and where most of our capital is deployed. And as long as we're absorbing heads and disks at these levels, we're okay. And if we had to reduce drive output, that's actually fairly easy capital for us to address, in part, because a lot of it is test capacity, which we can actually increase test times and also with aerial density -- sorry, with average capacity per drive increasing, test times are increasing anyhow. So in a certain sense, as challenging as the environment is, I'd say for the drive industry, given the aerial density and the petabyte growth, it's manageable. Now if TAMs dropped to 120 million units, that's a different story. Then the industry would probably have to take a hard look at a lot of things with respect to internal components and supply, as well as drive level capacity. But I'd say right now for us, while we're operating well below our theoretical capacity, we can maintain the margin structures and the cost objectives that we have at this level of demand, even if it lasted 9 or 12 months.