Rubicon Technology reported on Thursday that its fourth-quarter profit dropped 94% as weak demand continued to hurt the electronic-component supplier's sales.

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In fact, while I was standing around pelting Sorger with questions a box of parts from electronic component supplier Digikey was delivered.

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Or, to put it another way, could the component supplier play its customers off against each other to make new product lines inevitable?

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One component supplier to Apple said the company has already placed orders for parts for about 1.5 million iPad 3s in the fourth quarter.

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Disk-drive component supplier Hutchinson Technology this morning said the company will post better-than-expected results for its fiscal third quarter ended June 26.

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And unless he or she is your best friend, why go with your existing component supplier when the Net can find you a cheaper one?

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Samsung, on the other hand, has always been, first and foremost, an OEM supplier of component parts.

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If a display from a certain component maker returns poor UX results, OEMs can use that data to pick a different component or a different supplier entirely.

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According to its official statement, the One is not the actual target of any injunction in The Netherlands -- in actuality, the legalities of the matter are apparently only between Nokia and STMicroelectronics, the supplier of the component in question.

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The data from other Apple component suppliers cannot be used to draw conclusions about Apple sales because no other supplier has such a large percentage of its sales dependent upon Apple.

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