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There's a photo in today's NZ Herald showing all the new Honda cars
sitting in flood waters. If you're buying an imported car in the next few
months you'd better get it properly checked to make sure it isn't one of
those.

It looks like prices might go up even further as stocks dwindle.

This is from PCPro.co.uk ...

Seagate: hard disk shortage to last a year
------------------------------------------
The real damage of the hard disk shortage is only now starting
to bite - and it will last until the end of 2012.

The above prediction is from hard-drive maker Seagate's CEO
Steve Luczo, who told All Things Digital that before the flood
hit, Seagate expected demand next year to be about 180 million
units a quarter, "with a bump in September 2012 for Windows 8".

However, Seagate now believes the industry will only be able
to supply 120 million in the next quarter, slowly improving to
being able to fill demand by next December.

The pain won't end then, as the industry will have to catch up
with the 100 million shipments it won't be able to deliver over
the course of the year.

"And that will take another year to absorb, because it's not
like the industry is building new factories to chase that
demand," Luczo said. "We can't over invest to meet some bubble
and then get stuck with excess capacity."

Inventory running out
Luczo said built up inventory is only now starting to run out,
so it's going to get much worse over the next few weeks.

"There was already a lot of built inventory and a lot of
finished goods moving through the system," he said. "And now
all that is gone, and I think customers are starting to see
shelves of parts go empty, and realising that they¹re not
going to be filled for anywhere from one to two months."

He warned that although the floods hit six weeks ago, many
"fairly sophisticated companies" clearly didn't understand the
full scale of the problem - although he praised Apple's CEO
Tim Cook and HP's CEO Meg Whitman as two tech leaders who were
on top of the problem.

Whitman said in a conference call at the beginning of the week
that HP "reacted really fast" to the problem. "We set up a war
room, we began pulling in inventory and made strategic buys of
hard drives back in early October," she said, adding that HP
will get more than it's "fair share" of the drives that are
available.

"I think this is going to affect the industry pretty
dramatically because it's PCs, it's servers, it's storage, and
I think there's going to be some shortages in Q1 and Q2," she
added. "I think we're as well positioned as we can be, but I
think this is going to be pretty tough for the industry."

Somewhere on teh intarwebs Your Name wrote:
> It looks like prices might go up even further as stocks dwindle.

That's what I've been saying about investing in HDDs if possible. This is
going to be an issue for a long time yet.....
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long, way when religious belief has a
cozy little classification in the DSM."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)

In article <yourname->, (Your Name) wrote:
>
>There's a photo in today's NZ Herald showing all the new Honda cars
>sitting in flood waters. If you're buying an imported car in the next few
>months you'd better get it properly checked to make sure it isn't one of
>those.

9 years ago, ford couriers were made in Thailand too.

Other brands/models that might be included anyone ? ....

In article <jaufv1$ncr$>,
(Bruce Sinclair) wrote:
> In article
<yourname->,
(Your Name) wrote:
> >
> >There's a photo in today's NZ Herald showing all the new Honda cars
> >sitting in flood waters. If you're buying an imported car in the next few
> >months you'd better get it properly checked to make sure it isn't one of
> >those.
>
> 9 years ago, ford couriers were made in Thailand too.
>
> Other brands/models that might be included anyone ? ....

The article named two other brands (Toyota was one). I didn't read it
fully, but I think it said those two companies had problems with their
factories, but were now running again, while Honda was still shut down.

With all the inter-connections and companies owning each other, you could
probably name almost any car brand and they were affected.

From MacRumours.com ...

Shipping Estimates on iMacs with 2 TB Hard Drives Slip
to 5-7 Weeks Amid Shortages
------------------------------------------------------
As noted by AppleInsider, shipping estimates for build-to-order
iMac models equipped with 2 TB hard drives have slipped to a
significant 5-7 week timeframe, suggesting that hard drive
shortages caused by massive flooding in Thailand over the past
several months may be catching up with Apple.

Curiously, Mac Pro models configured with 2 TB drives do not
show the same delays, with those build-to-order configurations
shipping in just 3-5 business days. The 2 TB drive on the iMac
is the only drive affected, as the standard 1 TB drive and
configurable 256 GB solid state drive do not significantly
boost build times. That 2 TB drive is available as a
build-to-order option on the high-end 21.5-inch iMac and on
both base models of the 27-inch iMac.

Apple CEO Tim Cook was asked about the potential impact of the
Thailand flooding on Apple's business during the company's
October earnings conference call. Cook noted that there would
undoubtedly be an industry-wide shortage of hard disk drives
that would primarily affect Apple in its Mac business, but that
there had yet to be a full assessment of the impact or an
estimated timeline for recovery. He also declined to offer any
specific information on the expected impact to Apple, noting
only that any such impact was figured into the company's
blockbuster revenue guidance of $37 billion for the holiday
quarter.