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Technology Stocks : WDC/Sandisk Corporation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Art Bechhoefer who wrote (7398)	10/7/1999 4:43:00 PM
From: quidditch	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 60323

Art, Aus--in on Tuesday with a modest initial position and looking to build into a substantial position. Congratulations to the thread in that SNDK pulled out of a sickening slide/hungry buyers might want a bit of a retrenchment from here to add to positions -:) Art, your post to Mark distinguished between commodity chips and proprietary chips such as CF for certain applications. And we know how crucial the difference is in terms of ROI, SNDK and investors. Having said that, Art, you posted earlier today this kernel of intelligence, in the form of a query: As to the proprietary technology itself, a key issue, not entirely resolved yet, is whether flash memory is just a commodity or whether the devices produced by SanDisk contain sufficient intellectual property to make them unique and therefore immune from competition from cut rate suppliers....The Lexar infringement suit ought to answer this question. I appreciated your explanation of some of the issues surrounding the Lexar litigation. I guess I am still confused as to the scope and applicability of SanDisk's patent portfolio, leading to a couple of questions: (i) are there essential patents in SanDisk's IPR relating to some or all of its CF memory that distinguish it from "generic" flash; (ii) depending on the specific use and application of SanDisk's CF in, e.g., cameras, wireless devices or music players on MPeg3 etc., does the profile of SNDK's essential patent IPR change or become more susceptible to a possible finding of prior use and the failure to distinguish SanDisk's CF from generic flash memory? This question seems much more fundamental than some of the issues bandied about by Lexar in the litigation, such as misleading advertising (which I gather was the rather limited object of the motion for the TRO) or clock speed to complete (write) storage. Thank you again for making this one of the stellar threads here, and what SI is supposed to be all about. Steve

To: Art Bechhoefer who wrote (7398)	10/7/1999 11:22:00 PM
From: Mark Oliver	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 60323

Art, yes DRAM is a commodity. But, what happens when any product that seems to be in a supply imbalance due to a crisis (real or not) such as the earthquake causes buyers to stock up and then not buy for 2 days in order to burn off their excess inventory? It's wiped great gains in DRAM ASP as fast as it was gotten. I would think the same would be true for already supply constrained CF even though it's not a commodity. Wouldn't it be a natural for buyers to buy any available supply when they heard about the quake? Now, they can relax and go back to normal. One just hopes they were unable to get enough before and that they'll be unable to get enough after. Certainly, it must have driven short term spot prices for CF up. Now, will they fall back to the same level, or stay up for a little longer? If they remain up and supply is unaffected, this will naturally do great things for profit line. It's obviously short term trading nonsense. When I said to Sam, the stock market will sell Sandisk based on the earthquake, he felt this would be a short term event and that it wouldn't be one to try to time. I was pleased because it offered a better enter point for me. ;) Regards, Mark