Disk-drive manufacturer Quantum has issued a profit warning for its first quarter. For the quarter ending 27 June, Quantum said it expects profit to be less than half the figure analysts had been anticipating. Falling prices were blamed by the company for turning the expected 31 cents per share earnings into a figure now thought to be somewhere between five and 15 cents. Turnover for the quarter is expected to fall short of the $1.31 billion seen in the fourth quarter of last year. Much of the pain felt by Quantum is being felt by other disk-drive makers as PC vendors continue to exert pressure for suppliers to cut prices. The cut-price war in the desktop market has been the main catalyst of change here, causing a knock-opn effect right the way down the supply chain. ®