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CPUs and hard disks in short supply

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CIOL Bureau
New Update

Shwetha Khanna



NEW DELHI: As the Q3 approaches in the West, the CPU supply is siphoned out and RAM prices have reached a new high. Interestingly, this year the hard disk market is also tight. CPU prices have shot up by nearly Rs 400 to Rs 500 and hard disks by Rs 200. RAM prices have gone up by as much as 25 percent, though now they are stabilizing. Amit Pasricha, Director, Rudra Technologies, has been facing this problem for quite a while. "The P4 1.6 GHz has been in shortage majorly, PIII 1.3 GHz and P4 1.7 GHz are short on supplies but not as much as the earlier. The hard disks are in full supply but the prices have increased by Rs 200."



Other resellers are facing similar situation too. When the distributors were contacted, they were equivocal that the supplies are short from the vendors and they are trying to meet up with the demand. "The PIII has been pronounced EOL (End of Life) by Intel and thus the supplies are bleak, rest others, we are trying to match up with the demand," said Manoj Srikumar, Business Manager (Components), Ingram Micro India Ltd.







Ved Prakash, Director, AVS Enterprises, which deals in Seagate hard disks and Intel CPUs, mirrored similar sentiments and said that the situation of the CPUs will take a while before they come to normal. "Hard disk situation has been a result of the price war that was there. Vendors are bleeding raw and now they think they need to increase the price to cope up with the losses. Thus, this price increase has happened and it is going to stay so."



However, Saket Kapur, Director, Computer Vision, denied the supply shortage situation. "This is rather redistribution of products. The P4 1.6 GHz has been the focus area for Intel and rest of them have been the sale-ups, ideally P4 1.7 GHz should have taken their place, but the P4 1.5 GHz are there in stocks and Intel is trying to finish this inventory. Once the 1.5 GHz inventory finishes, I am sure there will be no dearth in 1.7 GHz supplies. Now coming to PIII 1.3 GHz, Intel is trying to give this segment the Celeron offerings and thus the supply shortage is well understood."



Agreeing with Kapur, Sandeep Aurora, Regional Channel Manager, Intel India, said, "Definitely we have to move our products offerings up the technology ladder, thus we will have to phase out certain products and graduate to a better product. Besides this, we are giving better offerings at friendlier price points. With Celeron 1.7 GHz, which is available at below Rs 5,000 mark, we are trying to fill the PIII 1.3 GHz demands."



Gaurav Gupta, Director, MB Solutions, a direct importer of Kingston and Simmtronics memories, said, "The prices were fluctuating, especially for last one month, but now they will stabilize in a week or so as prices have gone down internationally."



Added Arun Duggal, Proprietor, Aadhunik Automation Services, "We generally relate a redistribution of a product spectrum to supply shortage.



The PIII supply is zilch, as Intel wants to remove this offering from the market. Yes, other Intel CPU supply is short. When it comes to RAMs, SD RAM had a tremendous fluctuation recently, as much as 25 percent. Now the RAM prices are stabilizing. Hard disk supply shortage is artificial. Maxtor has increased its prices and others obviously will follow the suit. This has resulted in price escalation and it is related to the product supply shortage."



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