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

To: Ausdauer who wrote (8316)	12/5/1999 9:48:00 PM
From: Sam	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 60323

Aus, "How is it that demand has outstripped supply so quickly and how did we get caught with our pants down???" Well, this is just a guess, but I think the reason is: mp3. It certainly caught me by surprise, and I believe it was you who said at some point over the summer (the July CC?) that Dr. H. said that demand for mp3 flash was much stronger than they anticipated. I think, too, that cell phone demand is beginning to take off in a serious way. And probably the earthquake didn't help any, though that appears to have had limited effects on UMCG and TMSC. But the shortages were developing before the earthquake occurred. As far as whether it is a positive or a negative for them to be building their own capacity: I think it is a positive, especially in a JV with Toshiba. They will learn manufacturing from Toshiba. Dr. H. is not too egoistic to know that they can't possibly do everything themselves, figure out everything themselves, and many companies could learn a thing or two about semiconductor manufacturing from a company like Toshiba. I doubt if they will, even when this facility gets off the ground, ever be fully self sufficient, or even especially close to it, but I would guess that they will to some extent use the Seagate model of using both in-house and outside facilities to keep each of them honest and on their toes. FWIW, I'm still looking for new highs in January or Febuary, barring a tech market meltdown.

To: Ausdauer who wrote (8316)	12/5/1999 10:08:00 PM
From: rll	Respond to of 60323

Ausdauer, But I have always associated fabless with fab-u-lous, and now I am becoming a bit jittery about this leap to the next level. Yes, I have to agree with you on this. I've been trying to figure this out since the announcement was made a few months ago. It seems that Sandisk is a victim of their own success in this regard. They rely on outside fabs to provide their product, but competition for those fabs has become fierce with exponentially increasing silicon demand. Possibly, Sandisk's hands were tied and they had little or no other choice but to partner with Toshiba for this new facility. It's a large step for Sandisk to manage and run a fab and therefore partnering with Toshiba seems logical. I'm just wondering if the new design memory cards announced by both companies are really necessary? I mean Sandisk already has the CF and MMC. This may just add more consumer confusion and dissatisfaction if too many incompatible choices are out there. I can see why Toshiba would want to create a new standard card. rll P.S. I have been playing with my new Olympus C-2500L camera and I'm very impressed. I haven't tried to hook up the camera to my pc yet, I just transfer the 32MB smartmedia to CF and use my RCA CF reader to get them on my computer. Of course, I could just only use the CF in the camera too, but then I wouldn't have anything to use in the Lyra. I can have digital images on the CF and the Lyra doesn't care. It's cool.

To: Ausdauer who wrote (8316)	12/9/1999 5:59:00 PM
From: nealm	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 60323

Ausdauer, A few of the companies I follow started as fabless and transitioned to fab owning/operating. XLNX, ALTR, RFMD. In the case of RFMD (GaAs) the companies profits have increased proportional to fab capacity. For XLNX and ALTR they've have a reliable supply of 0.18micron (Silicon) chip supply which can be obtained by remaining fabless. I'm still studing the case for SNDK, but I think it's a natural part of the maturation of their product. Neal P.S. Do you still remember the dogs days of October? Makes me glad I stuck with the winners when the market was wrong.