It isn't just fear IMO. It is fundamentals and NAND prices. For the life of me I can't see how with a global recession just getting started, somehow demand is going to suck up all available supply and increase NAND prices. There is just no demand out there and there is huge supply. And the SSD is a dud so far. Too expensive and too many question about reliability still out there. I just don't know what can turn this around. On top of this, there is no question in my mind that SNDK will very likely miss this quarter and also warn for next Q. Can't see how they could not with prices what they are and Intel and Toshiba warning and putting the onus right on top of NAND prices
If you believe there's going to be a global recession, then NAND will be stuck in a rut for quite a long time. However, that's still a big IF. Much of the world is still growing, and only talk of recession is a side effect of a US recession. Now folks are arguing if were going into a recession or are already in a recession. Others ignore that and point to further growth ahead from all the rate cuts and stimulus package. We'll know in 6-12 months whether there was a recession and have a new outlook to the future.
I'm not sure I'd call the SSDs a dud. They're generally available, but not aways immediately. It's not sold out like Wii's, but they don't seem to be sitting gathering dust like Zune. It's somewhere between hit and dud, and they're still selling for $500-1000 for relative small sizes. When they get under $200 for fair sizes, I think sales will accelerate, which is a couple of years away. Meanwhile the transition is going to take some time and there will some growing pains of new technology, but these will also be ironed out in time. Took digital cameras longer than most people thought, and then when the mass transition occurred, it seemed to happen overnight. Similarly, when LCDs took over CRTs, the mass transition took only a few years, but prior to that, there was a decade of LCDs as a premium product, mainly in laptops, and that seems to be where SSD is now, but just about to make the mass market transition. Realistic expectations as to how low a price and what people are willing to pay are needed to assess whether a product is a success or failure. I too wish it were happening faster (as both investor and user), but there's a limit to what can be achieved and spent. In 2010, compare back to 2008 and we'll all see how far things have progress.
From 2005 to 2006 there was an 80 percent growth in SSD sales. It was 30-40 percent from 2006 to 2007. From 2007 to 2008 it could be 100 percent; largely as a result of flash SSD systems. I think the market will change rapidly. I think most of the major RAID HDD array vendors will put flash in their controllers.
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