This Morning: More Pain for Drive Makers, Nexus Goes up Against Kindle

Here are some things going on this morning in your world of tech.

More pain for disk drive makers this morning as analysts cut their outlooks for the sector and the stocks.

Barclays Capital’s Ben Reitzes cut his outlook for disk drive sales this year, citing continued weakness in the PC market. He cut estimates for both Seagate Technology (STX) and Western Digital (WDC), whose shares he rates Equal Weight.

ThinkEquity’s Rajesh Ghai cut his rating on Seagate and on Western Digital to Hold from Buy, and cut his price target from $39 to $24 on STX and from $50 to $30 on Western, writing, “a significant downward reset in expectations is likely in the near-term given our checks suggest a weakening of PC demand in until-now robust emerging markets.”

Western shares are down 97 cents, or 3.4%, at $28.83, while Seagate shares are off $1.12, or almost 5%, at $23.41.

Analysts continued to pour forth on Google‘s (GOOG) new branded tablet, the “Nexus 7,” introduced yesterday at the company’s “I/O” developer conference. Needham & Co.’s Kerry Rice, who rates Google shares a Buy, sounds rather underwhelmed, writing “While the Nexus 7 tablet stacks up favorably against Amazon�s Kindle Fire, we believe it�s not revolutionary enough to gain significant tablet market share.”

Google shares are down $7.28, or 1.3%, at $562.20.

Speaking of the Kindle Fire from Amazon.com (AMZN), DigiTimes’s Siu Han and Alex Wolfgram this morning report that a newer version of the device, with a 7.85-inch screen, will come out in August at $199, the same introductory price as the Nexus 7, citing multiple unnamed industry sources. The device is expected to be — what else — thinner than the original. The authors note Amazon intends to maintain a price competitive lead in tablets.

Amazon stock is off $2.74, or 1.2%, at $223.21.

And analysts were picking through their findings at an annual confab hosted by Qualcomm (QCOM) that kicked off yesterday in San Diego, “Uplinq.” The company made several product strategy announcements, but analysts are a bit distracted at the moment by what they see as gloomy news in the handset world.

Qualcomm stock is down 83 cents, or 1.5%, at $54.08.

Chris Caso with Susquehanna Financial Group, was trimming estimates for patent license revenue for Qualcomm for this quarter, writing, “We are taking the opportunity to tweak down our June-quarter QTL units to reflect what we think is now obvious weakness at NOK and RIMM, and the product transition at Samsung, which we do not think will be made up by others”

Speaking of smartphones, The Wall Street Journal’s Juro Osawa and Jung-Ah Lee report that “fresh concerns are emerging about Samsung Electronics (005930KS)” because of delays in getting its latest smarpthone, the “Galaxy S III” delivered in the U.S., with Sprint-Nextel (S) pushing out the date of availability. The authors also mentioned yesterday’s injunction against the “Galaxy Tab” in the U.S. won by�Apple�(AAPL) as further evidence of the company stumbling.

Samsung shares rose a fraction overnight to ?1,116,800 in Seoul trading.