SI
SI
discoversearch

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor.  We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community.  If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.
Technology Stocks : WDC/Sandisk Corporation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: Ausdauer who wrote (13355)7/27/2000 12:56:38 PM
From: Jason Rooks  Read Replies (3) | Respond to of 60323
 
Aus,

The interesting point not mentioned in the discussion regarding possible SSTI and SNDK overlap is that SNDK is coming out with an "embedded flash" product which will compete with SSTI and M-Systems. When you and I were at the shareholders meeting and you were talking to Dr. Eli about the MP3 cell phone, I spoke with one of the engineers there about the "embedded flash" market and he said they had a product which would compete with M-Systems' DOC. By the transitive property, if SSTI competes with M-Systems' DOC, and SNDK's product will compete with DOC, then SNDK will compete with SSTI in that market.

In my opinion, SNDK's move into that market is a concern for SSTI, not SNDK. SNDK would not move into a space which it did not believe it had a chance for success. Additionally, Dr. Eli stated that SNDK recognizes the Joint Venture with Toshiba will result in a coupling of the two companies expertise in NAND and NOR flash, both technically and from the increase in supply. That is one reason why the SNDK folks were so excited about the JV.

Jason Rooks



To: Ausdauer who wrote (13355)9/18/2000 8:42:25 AM
From: docpaul  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 60323
 
Aus, I think you too might be a bit misled by SSTI's motives:

May I take a second to respond to your old posts which you reference this AM?

<<The SSTI embedded ADC disk drive...

...will use NAND flash from sources like "Toshiba and Samsung" and the assembly will be contracted out to Apacer. SuperFlash is used in the controller.>>

This is correct.. the ADC product mainly consists of other people's products. This is intentional, as the company strives to look for novel uses of low density code storage. In this particular case, they've used a piece to store the code for the IDE disk instruction set. This controller is the only part they sell, and in fact a high margin piece. You mention in another post that this product is a flash card. It's not.. it's a single chip with stacked NOR and NAND.

<<I think a similar argument can be made for the SSTI CompactFlash cards.
I suspect these are also NAND-based products.

The logic of the FlashVision LLC investment is clear.>>

Maybe I'm misreading you here, but you seem to believe that SSTI is looking to gain some of the NAND market. This really isn't the case. As with the ADC product, this flashcard market is once again, an opportunity for SSTI to have a niche to sell a piece of NOR.. in this case, an experiment to see if the public valued faster CF cards. They, at least from what I've read, had the fastest rated CF card reviewed at one point. They've not made the NAND, only the controller NOR chip. Nor do they intend to, even though they've stated publicly that Superflash technology could easily be leveraged into NAND products, if they chose. In their current market position however, being able to fill only half of their demand, there's certainly no need to compete in "new" markets that are already saturated with good competitors such as SNDK. In fact, wasn't the "agreement" that was publicly discussed b/t SNDK and SSTI regarding CF cards?

All the best, docpaul