Gartz and v1kes,

You might note in STX's just filed 10-Q that they reduced sales programs in the September quarter as compared with the year ago quarter to 7% of gross revenues as compared to 12% of a much higher gross revenue number or about $120 million+ less. It also reports an 8% amount in the June quarter so the process was already aggressively under way then as I have suggested on several occassions to your mutual skepticism.

This fairly significant reduction has boosted revenue and gross margin and has not apparently wreaked havoc on the STX sales efforts. I also strongly believe that it has been a big contributor to the more stable industry pricing environment. I applaud STX's resolve on this front and hope that they can avoid the constant temptation to allow that number to creep back up again at the margin because, at the end of the day, most of the things that result from that are bad (lower revenue, gross margin and product pricing).

This is just a quiet "I told you so."