OCZ Leaves RAM Market
OCZ has now abandoned its well-regarded RAM products, and will instead focus on SSDs.
In figures unveiled as a part of the company's regular earnings call, OCZ explained that it made a mere 22 percent of its revenue from DRAM products in the third financial quarter of this year.
Ryan Petersen, chief executive officer at OCZ, explained that 'we have focused on building the OEM and enterprise segments of our business, and last month we announced a mass production order from a Tier-1 OEM for our enterprise-class SSDs, reflecting the reliability, speed and total cost of ownership solid state drives provide over traditional mechanical hard drives.
'We believe the market opportunity for SSDs is significant, and to that end, we will continue to invest in research and development to extend our leadership position, and we also plan to increase our sales and marketing efforts in order to facilitate continued revenue growth and increased market share as SSDs gain adoption in all segments.'
The move out of the DRAM market comes after an announcement in August last year that the company would no longer make entry-level DRAM, and would instead concentrate its efforts at the higher-performance - and therefore more profitable - end of the market.
The company's exit from the DRAM market is expected to be completed by 28 February, although it will take time for stock to work its way out of retailers' inventories.
With DRAM prices continuing to fall globally, OCZ might be picking the right time to leave the market. However, the loss of its well-regarded products, including the recently launched Blade 2 and XTE series, will be a blow for some overclockers.
Is OCZ right to concentrate on SSDs instead of memory, or should the company look at getting back into the DRAM market once prices pick up again? Share your thoughts over in the forums.
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Discuss in the forums ReplyWhat's next - Corsair ditching their range in favor of head-phones?
just of the top of my head Abit , BFG Now OCZ my prefered Suppliers of parts are falling by the way side.
Am sure there are more but these spring to mind. Non seam to be going bust , just moving on to other things.
I was going to use 2x1gb of Corsair DDR2 in my soon to arrive mini itx board, and sell my 2x1gb of OCZ DDR2. Might have to do it the other way round, just for old times sake :D
Both my best sets of RAM are OCZ, not good for RMA :/
Hmm yes. My OCZ DDR2 has a lifetime warranty. I wonder how they will honor warranty claims, as the company isn't going bust, just ceasing to create the product or a suitable alternative...
The parts used are all coming form Elpida, Hynix, Infineon, Renesas, Samsung or Toshiba and nowadays it's very hard to tell which parts are used in the final product, if you don't buy something without a heatspreader, where you can directly look at the parts.
So what I do is, I go with the old traditional one in this business, aka Kingston or I buy Samsung or Infineon original stuff.
Micron is a memory manufacturer. OCZ was not. OCZ was a circuit board, label and laser etched aluminium reseller, like most other DIMM 'manufacturers'.
I find it entertaining to watch so many people ascribe value to nothing more than a name on a plastic label or a heat spreader. It is really more sad to watch the collective PC builder enthusiast community be so uninformed, though.
I think you will find it is akin to saying "I like Asda's apples". You know the store didn't make them, but you know they chose that type(memory), that packaging(heatspreader/label) and they (Asda/OCZ) are providing you with the finished product and are the ones who you deal with in terms of support and warranty.
I found my OCZ DDR2 to clock a hell of a lot better than the Corsair DDR2 ever did, so while they didn't make the memory itself. The package they put together, which is afterall what the customer will get was better than the package Corsair had put together at the time.
The difference is the "name" in this case is OCZ, who offer a lifetime warranty on their RAM. Names mean a lot in business. Profit and loss can be made or broken on a name. Customer service is tagged to a name as well. In this case, the market has lost a VERY good name in terms of customer service.
Any word on how Warranty's will be honoured?
Sam
:| Then thanks for sharing your bigotted feelings....
Since then ive used Kingston and Gskill with no issues whatsoever.
Last OCZs were DDR2 Plat and DDR2 Reapers
Quite likely - although AMD have a better market share than OCZ
I know. You don't need to be condescending. I was making a point in stating how unexpected this all was - after all OCZ (was) one of the big names in memory. Rebranding or not, confidence is a lot of what drives repeat customers, and if they know they can trust brand X not to buy cheap as pants circuit boards out of a Chinese man's coat, then they'll probably buy from them again.
Their SSDs have a good reputation so sounds like a smart move, especially considering how enterprise level servers using SSDs are becoming commonplace. Huge amount of money to be made there.
I lol'd. Stuck with Geil for Socket A and Corsair for AM2, looks like it'll be Crucial or Corsair for the DDR3 purchase.
I've got OCZ Reapers in my i7 rig, might need to hold onto my REAPERX 2x2GB sticks now!
Looks like they are incapable of developing for more then one or two products at the same time. Let's see how long they will stay in PSU busines :D Not to mention more competition they will have as more companies enter SSD market as it becomes more accessible to end user.
: D
When did Infineon turn into Quimondo, and when did Quimonda close? :D
And lets hope now they are focussing on SSDs that they will produce some lightning quick and cheaper ones! Just bought an OCZ vertex 2 128gb yesterday and their drives, although not the quickest (crucial), are competitive and I think have a good balance between performance and price. Who knows, maybe they will be the quickest and most competitive in the near future driving down SSD prices even more, we can only hope!
Their SSD's are ridiculously fast, that I can vouch for. If there was a market that they should concentrate more resources on rather than DRAM, it's clear that they have chosen the right one.
No company has infinite amounts of capital at its disposal so they allocate it to the most promising projects. Obviously for OCZ it is not RAM. So what?!
VERY good idea! They should stick to just their excellent gpu's.
The only bad memory I ever had was OCZ. Also the very worst help from any manufacturer still in business.
Good riddance.
This please as after spending a bit on there ram be interesting to know what will happen now.
No!! we need AMD to keep Intel's prices down!
Now I have to find a new manufacturer when I do a new pc.
In loving memory of...
OCZ? RAM market is pretty tough, eh?
Gutted to hear they've pulled out of RAM, they've been my default RAM now for a few years, but no longer!
Overclocking performance of the RAM I've bought (DDR & DDR2) has been pretty decent, I have had the occasional failure, but OCZs RMA has been pretty good so far.
I've recently (May) RMA'ed some DDR2 RAM (1 of 2 sticks wouldn't run at CAS4 @800 MHz anymore), OCZ have agreed to pay me a respectable market value for them :). So to those worried about future RMA claims, so far no probs!
Now I've just got to remember to give them the IBAN & BIC numbers so I can actually get the cash!
To those that said OCZ only rebrand modules, didn't they make the PCBs too? (someone said they did), in which case that would affect performance. Also OCZs lifetime warrantee accounted for a lot.