Seagate Technologies’ disk drive oversupply problems couldn’t have come at a much worse time for Control Data Corp: just as the Minneapolis company was looking for four straight quarters of solid profit this year to restore confidence on Wall Street, the company now says that softness in the US disk drive market and problems at its VTC Inc semiconductor operation mean that it may report a loss for the third quarter. The shares fell $1.625 to $20.625 on the news. On the VTC problems, the company says that production is running about six months behind schedule, while on the disk drive front, it is talking of a slump in the disk drive market, although it still expects its newly-named Imprimis Technology data storage business to be showing improved results by year-end. The company also expects computer shipments to government customers to be delayed, leading analysts to forecast that the ETA Systems supercomputer business in St Paul will fail to meet its $100m 1988 sales target by $10m to $20m.
