OCZ Leaves RAM Market

[yepp]

OCZ Technology, once the legendary name among the suppliers of high-speed memory modules, plans to completely withdraw from the dynamic random access memory market. As a result, the company will concentrate its efforts on solid-state drives (SSDs), flash media and power supply units (PSUs).

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/memory..._Withdraws_from_Memory_Market_Completely.html

 

[nanaki333]

more profit in SSDs. i don't blame them 1 bit.

 

[hal2kilo]

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/memory..._Withdraws_from_Memory_Market_Completely.html

No brainer, dynamic ram has become a comodity market. Notice the lack of price spread in ram modules. Let the Crucials and Kingstons fight it out.

 

[Texashiker]

In the long run, this is probably a wise move. Memory is cheap, and there is probably more money to be made in SSD drives.

In the new few years SSD will probably replace SATA drives, so why not jump on the bandwagon now.

 

[BBMW]

And what are they going to do as SSDs become commoditized? Are they really adding value to their SSDs, or are they just one of a bunch of Sandforce (at the moment) vendors, selling essentially the same product?

more profit in SSDs. i don't blame them 1 bit.

 

[VirtualLarry]

OCZ has been developing a bad rap in DD3 too. I don't blame them for pulling out of the market. They won't be missed!

Edit: Does this meant that there might be fire-sale prices on their DDR3? Then again, DDR3 is getting so cheap in general, that I don't think that I would even want to stock up on OCZ. Maybe if I could get 4GB for $10 I would.

 

[Emulex]

my G2 microcenter seems more stable than my ocz sandforce

China has alot of people that can bin memory. put it on a tester and have it program the ram and tell them what bin to stick it in. so the whole overclock memory has been played out.

Maybe they can overclock some sandforce firmware and make it stable and sell that.

 

[Zap]

And what are they going to do as SSDs become commoditized? Are they really adding value to their SSDs, or are they just one of a bunch of Sandforce (at the moment) vendors, selling essentially the same product?

Who is selling PCIe SSDs using current controllers? Who is selling 3.5" SSDs?

Oh yeah, OCZ is.

They've been switching over to SSDs for a while now. I first heard about it around the time that they dumped Hypersonic PC around a year ago.

 

[Rubycon]

Good riddance.
Hopefully they won't let the DIMM light hit their hindparts on the way out!

 

[Emulex]

I just wish my callisto deluxe would be as stable as my microcenter g2 lol.

 

[Blain]

OCZ Leaves RAM Market

Rock On! :thumbsup:

 

[Nintendesert]

I buy GSkill anyways, never had problems. Their SSD offerings show much more promise and interest for me anyways than anything they offered on the RAM side.

 

[Emulex]

g.skill is like bottom of the barrel chinese. heck avant is better than g.skill they speak english (even are american). G.skill is like ADATA. very much like them. maybe an american firm to rep them (That speaks chinese too) and that's it.

 

[Cerb]

my G2 microcenter seems more stable than my ocz sandforce

A drive is either operating correctly, or defective. It amazes me what some people will put up with.

The same is true for RAM. OCZ has had poor QC for ages w/ their RAM, but as long as they were faster, people would put up with it. They earned those 2 and 3 star/egg average user reviews on all their sticks.

g.skill is like bottom of the barrel chinese. heck avant is better than g.skill they speak english (even are american). G.skill is like ADATA. very much like them. maybe an american firm to rep them (That speaks chinese too) and that's it.

So? Does it work every time, on every board you plug it into? OCZ managed to screw that up, with many of their DDR2 and DDR3 sticks.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

Good riddance.
Hopefully they won't let the DIMM light hit their hindparts on the way out!

I don't get this hostility towards OCZ modules. I've been running 12x 2GB DDR3-1600 1.65V OCZ modules in various systems over the last ~2 years without issue, and quite a few DDR and DDR2 modules before that.

 

[Nintendesert]

g.skill is like bottom of the barrel chinese. heck avant is better than g.skill they speak english (even are american). G.skill is like ADATA. very much like them. maybe an american firm to rep them (That speaks chinese too) and that's it.

That's pretty much exactly the point. The days of needing Mushkin and Corsair are long gone. The RAM world doesn't need anything more than G.Skill so companies like OCZ have to get out and focus on something else.

 

[Emulex]

depends if you believe the world revolves around consumer but in fact the big money is in business. where quality is paramount over price.

 

[hal2kilo]

A drive is either operating correctly, or defective. It amazes me what some people will put up with.

The same is true for RAM. OCZ has had poor QC for ages w/ their RAM, but as long as they were faster, people would put up with it. They earned those 2 and 3 star/egg average user reviews on all their sticks.

So? Does it work every time, on every board you plug it into? OCZ managed to screw that up, with many of their DDR2 and DDR3 sticks.

Wow, didn't realize people were having that much problem with their ram. Must be like the Netgear of the memory world. Won't touch Netgears junk anymore.

 

[sxr7171]

We all have opinions on brand but at the end of the day most of stuff is straight commodity level stuff. It just depends on whether you want service with it or not.

 

[DisgruntledVirus]

Wasn't really expecting this. I saw OCZ as a good brand. I haven't had issues with their products.

 

[jimhsu]

depends if you believe the world revolves around consumer but in fact the big money is in business. where quality is paramount over price.

Hence how business vendors can charge absolutely huge markups on "server grade ECC ram" when it's no more different than actual ECC ram, except for some "guarantees" and such.

In all likelihood the actual memory modules are identical.They might or might not have been binned though.

 

[Rubycon]

I don't get this hostility towards OCZ modules. I've been running 12x 2GB DDR3-1600 1.65V OCZ modules in various systems over the last ~2 years without issue, and quite a few DDR and DDR2 modules before that.

Just the company as a whole. Hopefully this is the step in the right direction. (can you say BFG?) I'll bite my tongue now as I don't want to get wrapped up in the whole politics of this but this "announcement" does not surprise me in the least.

 

[GFORCE100]

Life is tough for any company that bases most of its revenue hence survivability on just taking OEM products and sticking their company logo (sticker) onto them and then selling them off as their own. There's very little they can do engineering wise without expertise in house. Expertise (human resources) costs big bucks to hire the smart folks out there, which is a must-do if you want to win really. This is both a financially and business risk because whose to say what they come up with will sell like fresh bread?

Given they have no production facilities they need to outsource it to the Foxconn's (and others) of this world. These meanwhile have high minimum orders for them to be interested, they also have more power when it comes to pricing often leaving very little room for a company such as OCZ to insert a healthy profit margin. Remember that it's not just the difference in cost between the the production cost, production sell price and consumer sell price. They need to add in their costs such as marketing, wages, trade shows, office rent, other company expenses.

It's a difficult business, those who will ultimately win in the RAM market are those with the production facilities. The more you outsource the more you end up paying each sub-contractor. The more you control in-house the more flexible you can be with pricing.

Sadly it's not as easy to make consumers pay more to compensate, especially with fierce competition. Hoping that consumers get sold on flashier stickers, better marketing slogans, gimmicks such as free case stickers/t-shirts etc. isn't going to win in the medium to long term.

Sadly (or perhaps not) many companies like OCZ will as time progresses either sell their businesses to bigger players, attempt a radical strategy change or just go bankrupt. The biggest asset all these OCZ-ers out there have is their brand. If it's wasn't for a brand name their company value would be low.

It's a dog eat dog world out there, has been, will be. Kingston is also a similar company but they were first to market back in the dark days of personal computing. Whoever's first has a head start, consumers often remember their company name simply because it's was the first brand they heard (likely).

There will come a day when profit margins in the SSD space also drop radically. The only reason they're healthy right now is that it's new technology still and because of such it can be marketed at the rich crowd out there. Once they've bought enough they'll need to hunt the lesser rich crowd, for this to happen however they'll need to lower prices. Naturally production costs will go down over time (due to a smaller production process for most part), however the gap between production cost and end sale price will have to decrease dramatically. Once your profit margin drops considerably you either a) start selling a lot more volume to survive or b) die a painful death (at least the product line if not the company). A company such as Intel who will be a leader in the SSD space no questions asked can crush any small player overnight by just lowering prices. That's the best thing about being rich - your options are always open.

OCZ betting too much on SSD's to take them into the future is very risky, they should think beyond this, have a longer vision. Last I know they are traded on the LSE thus London stock exchange. I'm not sure who has control over the company, nonetheless betting your future on one horse is foul play in any game.

Just my humble opinion is all, hehe

 

[JimKiler]

I had no idea of all the OCZ hate as well but I have one of their SSD's and would buy from them again. They seemed to be the first real competitor to intel's SSD technology by using Sandforce controllers.

I just wish I had followed through on buying some OCZ stock when it was only $2 a share because now it is at $7+.

GFORCE100 they have been on NASDAQ stock exchange since April. I thought that was their IPO but i do not see that under company events on yahoo financials, interesting.

 

[Pohemi]

I was hesitant to purchase an OCZ Vertex 2 due to past problems with DDR2/3 modules, and the runaround with their customer support. Pleasantly surprised at how well this SSD works though.