Rick,
M-Systems (FLSH) makers embedded flash. Sandisk makes flash cards. These are two entirely different things. FLSH competes with SSTI, not Sandisk. Joseph and SSB have been bullish on FLSH and negative on SSTI for quite awhile now. I don't really understand why this is so--frankly, I think it might change if SST threw some investment banking business to SSB (I know, you're shocked, just shocked, let's round up the usual suspects), but they don't. I haven't investigated whether FLSH does use SSB for their investment banking, but I'd be willing to bet more than a few shares of their stock that they have and they do.
In the meantime, it looks like if Sandisk does get into the embedded flash business, it will be alongside FLSH and Tower Semiconductor, both of whom use Saifun's technology (which won't produce anything until late 2002), and in opposition to SST, which is frantically trying to produce everything it can right now, as demand is overwhelming supply.
Sam |
