🚀 go-pugleaf

rmilner@zia.aoc.nrao.edu (Ruth Milner) writes:
: Has anyone heard anything about a sudden dramatic increase in the price of
: SIMMs for SPARCstations (and probably other systems)?
: 
: A few weeks ago we ordered some 4MB SIMMs and paid about $125 each. Today
: we called the same vendor and were told the lowest he could tell to us for
: was $225 each!! Something about a lawsuit against Korean SIMM manufacturers
: (I got the message thirdhand so this could be wrong).
: 
: I haven't seen anything about this in the rags of the past few days.
: 
: If it really is an epidemic, it seems to me that the price has been raised in
: anticipation of a shortfall or future increase, because they must still be
: running on current stock. Kind of like gas prices shooting up at the pump
: as soon as (or before) oil prices go up, even though the stuff you're putting
: in your tank didn't cost the dealer any more than it did the day before. This 
: would seem to be borne out by the fact that this guy told us to wait "a couple 
: of weeks" and it might get sorted out ...
: 
: Anyone?
: -- 
: Ruth Milner                          NRAO/VLA                  Socorro NM
: Computing Division Head      rmilner@zia.aoc.nrao.edu

This sounds like panic and/or opportunistic price gouging by distributors.
The trade mag article I read says that only about 20% of the memory used in
the US comes from Korea. The rest come from Japan which are not affected,
and Japanese sources can easily supply the demand.

Russ Poffenberger               DOMAIN: poffen@sj.ate.slb.com
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