DRAM price conspiracy theory.
Anthony Maw
IMHO there is a conspiracy going on right now regarding skyrocketing DRAM
prices that have nothing to do with earthquakes in Taiwan.
I seem to recall around five years ago that RAM prices shot up just before
the anticipated release of Windows 95 which generally required twice the RAM
that most machines had at the time. Back then I recall the excuse was "a
fire at a resin plant in Japan".
Now with the imminent release of RAM hungry Windows 2000 (128 MB for W2K
Professional a.k.a. Workstation and even more for Server) we see a sudden
jump in RAM prices yet again !!!!
What a coincidence !
I find it hard to believe that in a world market where there is actually
excess production capacity (that had to be scaled back) that an earthquake
in Taiwan could trigger a quadrupling of prices. Is Taiwan the only goddamn
place on the planet that produces DRAM?
Do they really think we're that gullible or are we all just at the mercy of
those fucking DRAM commodity traders ?
Comments and flames welcomed.
P.S. At it's lowest point around August 1999 a 128MB PC100 SDRAM module
sold retail in Vancouver, Canada for $110 CAD. Should have stockpiled if I
had known !!!
mailto:am...@direct.ca
Chris Pitzel
> prices that have nothing to do with earthquakes in Taiwan.
That consipiracy is called supply and demand. Demand is up, and supply
is not growing fast enough to keep up with such demand. A lot of the
cheap RAM you saw was taken out of long term inventory and dumped fairly
inexpensively.
Taiwan produces some memory, but South Korea is a much larger player in
the field.
> I seem to recall around five years ago that RAM prices shot up just before
> the anticipated release of Windows 95 which generally required twice the RAM
> that most machines had at the time. Back then I recall the excuse was "a
> fire at a resin plant in Japan".
Yeah, and what a lie that was. That particular plant produced a very
small portion of a particular product which was used in production.
Whatever loss in production that fire had was easily made up by other
manufacturers.
> Now with the imminent release of RAM hungry Windows 2000 (128 MB for W2K
> Professional a.k.a. Workstation and even more for Server) we see a sudden
> jump in RAM prices yet again !!!!
Well, RAM's come down about $100 here in Canada in the past 2 weeks.
It's down to like $350 a module (128mb, non-ECC) from $450.
> What a coincidence !
Well, larger system builders are ordering more RAM because people are
speccing 128mb and 256mb configurations more frequently.
> I find it hard to believe that in a world market where there is actually
> excess production capacity (that had to be scaled back) that an earthquake
> in Taiwan could trigger a quadrupling of prices. Is Taiwan the only goddamn
> place on the planet that produces DRAM?
No. There's plenty of other countries.
> Do they really think we're that gullible or are we all just at the mercy of
> those fucking DRAM commodity traders ?
Yes, we're at the mercy of RAM traders, and at the mercy of the large
manufacturers (who, BTW, still get their modules for $150/each for 128mb
because they buy on long term contracts..).
> P.S. At it's lowest point around August 1999 a 128MB PC100 SDRAM module
> sold retail in Vancouver, Canada for $110 CAD. Should have stockpiled if I
> had known !!!
Yes, it sure was a good deal then.