Conner Peripherals Inc failed to attend a series of Dataquest conferences and exhibitions in Budapest, Prague and Warsaw despite paying for the stands, reportedly due to lack of available personnel. In their absence, rumours mounted regarded the extent of the company’s difficulties following the loss of its second pan-European distributor Peripherals Europe. According to one exhibitor, Peripherals Europe may have owed Conner as much as $180m, though other competitors argue it cannot be more than a tenth of this if Conner was operating on standard US 30-day credit terms. A number of suppliers claim, however, that Conner is off-loading around 200,000 120Mb hard disk drives on to the market, severely effecting margins particularly in Germany and the East European states. Conner’s difficulties are contributing to the emergence of cut-throat competition in the Eastern markets. Seagate Technology Corp regional sales director Alastair Hunter reported a 15% price erosion in hard disk drives in both of the first two quarters of 1993 in Eastern Europe had brought prices down to West European levels.
