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

To: Ausdauer who wrote (10339)	4/14/2000 1:15:00 AM
From: Binx Bolling	Respond to of 60323

Ausdauer, has Sandisk done an adequate job of defining these ongoing issues of patent protection in their SEC filed documents? I hope SNDK is contributing to both political parties. Sounds like our national treasures are being attacked by some unscrupulous foreign technology consortiums. Yesterday, it was stealing machine tool technology from our reveered High Tech Labs. What will it be tommorrow?

To: Ausdauer who wrote (10339)	4/14/2000 2:29:00 AM
From: Binx Bolling	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 60323

"What Sony's trying to do is create a removable storage medium for the future," said David Thor, research director of ResearchPortal.com, noting that future Internet-enabled cell phones will need storage like that of the Memory Stick to enable basic PDA functions. "The market out there is huge." "Sony says it has already shipped 2 million Memory Stick units worldwide, which it sees increasing to 20 million units by 2001. Currently, the Memory Sticks are used for storing and transferring images from digital cameras and digital music players to personal computers and laptops." Readers should read the whole article to experience questionable journalism. news.cnet.com hey Stephanie, do you call this an informative article or a puff piece? stephaniem@cnet.com

To: Ausdauer who wrote (10339)	4/14/2000 10:10:00 AM
From: Art Bechhoefer	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 60323

Aus, thanks for reminding us of the earlier patent related controversy. It is extremely important that investors realize SanDisk has all the bases covered (i.e., all the basic patents). The recent court ruling against Lexar, plus the recent patent approval for flash memories, including their assembly and plastic casing, means that SNDK has insured a cash flow sufficient to provide for virtually all its future capital investment. Put another way, SNDK is one of the few Internet related companies that can depend on internally generated funds to expand. Compare with companies such as AMZN, which keeps issuing more stock and borrowing more money. We are already seeing a divergence between high tech companies with solid financials and those with little or no earnings, little or no book value, and very often a lack of experienced management. Virtually all the stocks in this group have dropped, but the poorly financed ones, with little hope for profits that would justify even their lower stock prices, will not recover nearly as fast as the solid ones. Investors now have two events to look forward to: Next week's earnings report (I say earnings, because among the stocks in this group, SNDK stands out because it HAS earnings), and a very high probability of success in the current patent litigation. I'm still not clear on the impact of Sony and its claim that it will raise sales of Memorystick units from 2 million to 20 million in a year. I'm inclined to believe they are exaggerating, but also, given the broad coverage of SNDK patents, that SNDK will receive royalties from this part of the market as well. Not long ago, I compared SNDK and QCOM, giving a slight edge to QCOM, based on the prices of the two stocks at that time. With the price of SNDK having dropped more than the price for QCOM during the last few weeks, I would now give a considerable edge to SNDK, though both stocks appear to have more potential than most technology or telecommunications issues, even in this market.