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

To: Ausdauer who wrote (13471)	8/1/2000 11:13:53 AM
From: Starlight	Respond to of 60323

SanDisk mentioned in this article about music devices: yahoo.cnet.com

To: Ausdauer who wrote (13471)	8/1/2000 11:15:42 AM
From: Starlight	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 60323

This article does NOT mention SNDK, but it should: yahoo.cnet.com Napster popularity boosts gadget demand By Rachel Konrad Staff Writer, CNET News.com July 31, 2000, 6:50 p.m. PT Napster's legal pain has become the computer industry's financial gain as millions of people download digital music to burn onto CDs or transfer to portable players. The San Mateo, Calif.-based company is entangled in a daunting legal dispute with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which wants to shutter the popular site. And despite an estimated 20 million customers, Napster can't figure out how to collect revenue from file-swapping technology. Not so with electronics companies, which are cashing in on Napster's popularity boom--and even the publicity surrounding its potential doom. Although they are careful not to endorse Napster because of its bitter legal battle, many computer veterans praise the site for spurring demand for pricey devices. Regardless of what happens in the courtroom, experts say Napster has served nobly as a "killer app"--a catalyst to make people pine for faster, more expensive computers and related equipment. "Napster has created a lot of enthusiasm around this market," said Mike Reed, vice president of marketing for S3's Rio division, which sells portable MP3 players. "It demonstrated that people want access to digital music online. I hope to see a lot of ways for people to get digital music online in the next year. The more access to digital music, the more this segment grows." Napster was not the first site that allowed people to download music free of charge, and many file-swapping aficionados say that so-called peer-to-peer technology such as Gnutella is superior to Napster's server-centric software. But Napster's 20 million users certainly make it the most popular file-swapping site. And publicity surrounding its possible demise at the hands of the recording industry has recently made it a martyred hero to college students and others. Demand for MP3 players such as the Rio, which looks like a smaller version of the Sony Walkman and holds MP3s on a flash-memory card that can be reused, are partially to blame for creating a severe dearth of flash memory--possibly the most coveted product in the tech industry this year. With flash sales expected to climb from $4.5 billion to $10 billion this year, manufacturers such as Intel, Advanced Micro Devices, Atmel and Fujitsu are expected to reap substantial revenues. (there's more -- click on URL above)

To: Ausdauer who wrote (13471)	8/1/2000 1:01:28 PM
From: hueyone	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 60323

Aus, Thank you for your considerate reply. Your response raises several issues. In return for this risk I suspect that Apacer required SSTI to take an equity interest in their company. Note that no dollar figure has been attached to this 10% equity stake. Can you please provide the reference for your conclusion that Apacer is requiring SSTI to take a stake in the company? I haven't been able to find this reference in the releases I have viewed. Perhaps "inconceivable" was too strong a word. I agree inconceivable is too strong a word. I could have said It is inconceivable that SNDK would design and produce their own low density flash controller to compete with SSTI, but did not. Both companies have excellent R&D and are capable of producing and designing a wide range of flash products. SSTI has a competitive advantage over most of the industry in producing low density NOR flash and is working that core competency of their business very hard and very profitably. SNDK has a competitive advantage over SSTI in producing high density NAND type flash and is working that advantage very hard and very profitably. The 7/27/00 CSFB report notes that the ADC chip is built around an embedded controller that is to be integrated with NAND Flash components (produced by Samsung, Toshiba, etc., not SST right now.). The implication is that SST could produce the NAND component of the module and may elect to do so in the future, but has made the business decision to let others produce that component. Again, the report also suggests that Samsung and Toshiba, etc. will be the suppliers of this NAND flash, but I graciously stated that SNDK could also be viewed as a supplier to include in the etc. part of the broker's report. Your reply regarding the relationship between SST and SNDK is interesting. It sounds like we have no clear evidence that either SNDK or SST collect one dime from the other in the form of royalties or license fees, only speculation in this regard. As you say, we are just scratching the surface on the inter-relationships between the various companies involved in producing the flash products we are interested in. Therefore, I think we need to be very careful about implying in our posts that one company might be a net gainer from the other due to its IP. Regarding the SST press releases; I do think they were somewhat confusing. On the other hand, SST is under no obligation to trumpet NAND flash components produced by Samsung and Toshiba used in SST's proprietary ADC design. As you know, companies use components from other manufacturers all the time without advertising the fact. I am sure Intel saleman do not trumpet the fact Intel uses SST code storage when they sell Intel 800 series chips. With regard to the single chip, single disk, multi chip and module device confusion, I can understand how this arose. The final ADC product involves two chips integrated with each other in to one module. "Module" was the term used by the CSFB analyst and I have elected to go with that term. Again, a picture of this "module" can be viewed on the SST home page at ssti.com . The ADC module has exciting possibilities going forward, but as I said before, I don't expect this ADC module to be a huge money maker for SST in the immediate future. And SST has covered its downside risk in this project to a great extent by not producing every component in house. I expect SST to continue to make a great deal of money throughout calendar year 2001 ($4.55 per share or better) by focusing on its core competency---producing low cost, high margin, low density NOR (code) type flash. I believe SST is meeting with some success in its stated objective to dominate the NOR code storage market by first dominating the low-density flash market. . Thanks again for your reply and I look forward to more discussions with you as these stories continue to unfold. These are exciting times. JMHO and best regards, Huey