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

To: docpaul who wrote (14856)	9/18/2000 11:44:18 PM
From: Ausdauer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 60323

Paul, Thanks for your comprehensive, yet concise response to my earlier questions. You clearly have done your homework on SSTI and your conviction shines through. I am happy that SSTI and SNDK will likely not lock horns in the flash market. It has been my contention (which I have freely offered many times in the past) that SNDK and SSTI have very little overlap indeed. I owned (and prematurely sold) my SSTI holdings purchased in 1998 way too early and concentrated the investment in SNDK. If I knew what I now know I would have kept both. SSTI and SNDK address different ends of the flash spectrum and both with great success. It is great for the flash industry as a whole that companies like FLSH and SSTI have created embedded flash drives that seek to replace disk drives in newer mobile appliances. I hope that SSTI is able to sell a million units a month because it suggests that a lot of NAND flash will get soaked up leaving less available for competing CF cards, MMC and the like. There are still a couple of items that need to be considered regarding DOC and ADC. (This is arguably of little concern to SNDK shareholders). First, the FLSH CEO recently stated that FLSH DOC slots and SSTI ADC slots are incompatible, so there will be some competing with OEM's to use one solution or the other. As such it seems likely that there will be some pricing competition and margin pressure. If SSTI is shielded from this pricing pressure that would be great. But the relationship with Apacer adds some complexity as ultimately the cost of the flash controller will factor into Apacer's pricing and competitive edge. I don't wish to engage you in any discussion about SSTI's business strategy regarding flash density. Those of us who listened to SanDisk's last c.c. realize that SSTI poses no threat to SanDisk's leading role in the ultra-high density arena. In the past there have been SSTI investors who have descended on the SNDK thread to convince us that "SuperFlash" is coming. So far none of these predictions have come true. If anything the fact that SSTI has not attempted to address the ultra-high density storage market has been reinforced. Finally, I apologize if it seems I made a value judgement about low denity code vs. ultra-high density storage flash. I have been accused of this many times now and I plead guilty. My investment in SNDK is based primarily on the novel applications they enable and only secondarily on the business model Eli and Co. have crafted. Personally, I don't feel the excitement of 2Mbit and 4Mbit flash. Personally, I have never been elated because of a high margin microcontroller in an electronic device. I have experienced first hand with great amazement, satisfaction and shareholder pride the truly fantastic uses of a SanDisk CompactFlash and the SanDisk MMC. Best, Aus, a SanDisk curmudgeon