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

To: Art Bechhoefer who wrote (9245)	2/20/2000 5:28:00 PM
From: Rocky Reid	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 60323

>>>>>...that Sony, despite its huge marketing initiatives, will have a difficult time establishing its format for general use in digital cameras or music players. <<<<< I think you are missing something here about Sony... Sony is releasing the biggest, baddest stand-alone non-PC Set-top box in History soon. The Sony Playstation 2 in being relased in Japan March4 2000, and in the USA in the Fall 2000. The PS2 will have a Memory Stick slot. The sales of this beast is going to effectively put a Memory Stick slot in half the homes in America. Sony cannot be written off easily. However, I believe the market is big enough for Sony to profit off of Memory Stick and still leave considerable room for Sandisk. Sony's PS2 has been posting INCREDIBLE statistics. Here are a few: -500,000 hits on their Japanese PS2 website PER MINUTE -one store reported 10,000 unit pre-orders in the first 2 days. -90% of gamers polled were interested in PS2. ..only 5% in Sega Dreamcast. -Disney deal with Sony zdnet.com

To: Art Bechhoefer who wrote (9245)	2/21/2000 4:36:00 AM
From: Derek C.	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 60323

Art, <First is whether the Memory Stick will have substantially faster read/write times than CF or MMC.> Memorystick uses flash memory and a controller similar to CF/MMC/SDMC(unlike Smart Media). According to Sony MS Site, its MAXIMUM speed is "Writing: Maximum 1.5MB/second; Standby: Maximum 2.45MB/sec". sel.sony.com (Max number can not be increased with faster controller). This is the same performance of MMC card. SDMC is several times faster than MMC. MS , MMC and SDMC are serial devices. CF is different. It uses ATA interface. ATA devices can be very fast. <Second is whether the MemoryStick is cheaper or more expensive to produce than a comparable capacity flash memory.> I don't know if Sony is planning to wrap a dollar around every Memory Stick. It is more expensive to manufacture than SDMC since it uses Write Protect switch and constructed differently. Also Controller and flash memory are designed by two different companies. Toshiba and Sandisk design both controller and flash memory for SDMC. Derek