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

To: Michael Kim who wrote (15392)	10/7/2000 6:14:42 PM
From: Ausdauer	Respond to of 60323

Centennial's Quarterly Report biz.yahoo.com I was looking briefly at the announcement. The following things caught my eye. [ALL CAPS and bold type are mine] Total sales for the second quarter of fiscal 2001 were $23.4 million while net income was $6.6 million or $1.44 in diluted earnings per share. Net sales of PC cards and related products for the second quarter of fiscal 2001 increased 116 percent to $16.5 million from $7.6 million for the second quarter of fiscal 2000. There was also $6.9 million in sales of electronic components for the second quarter of fiscal 2001. THERE WERE NO SALES OF ELECTRONIC COMPONENTS IN THE PRIOR YEAR AND NONE ARE CURRENTLY EXPECTED IN THE FUTURE. Net income for the quarter from the sales of PC cards and related products was $3.3 million or $0.72 in diluted earnings per share, compared to $0.8 million or $0.26 during the same period of fiscal 2000. "We are very proud of these strong results," said Centennial President and Chief Executive Officer L. Michael Hone. "The strength of these numbers, of course, lies in the dramatic improvement in sales of PC cards and related products, which increased 28 percent over our prior quarter. Two of the keys to our success were the successful integration of Intel Corporation's flash memory card business and our ability to obtain flash memory components in an environment of short supply. We continue to be very excited about our prospects for the future." ___________________________________________________________________________________ I am glad CENL is having such success, although I have never seen their products sold at retail. cent-tech.com By SanDisk's design it would appear that the open standard for CompactFlash is allowing multiple CF manufacturers benefit from the digital gold rush. Centennial's results are yet another example of this. Message 14533212 I still don't have a firm handle on the extent to which '987 will be enforced, but I hope that once the Lexar suit is behind us that we will see several other card assemblers reach agreements with SanDisk. We may actually learn of such agreements during the Q3 report if we are lucky. Best, Ausdauer

To: Michael Kim who wrote (15392)	10/7/2000 6:49:23 PM
From: Ausdauer	Respond to of 60323

As far as I can tell it would seem that Centennial... ...makes its money on PC cards. The following is from the last 10Q filing: OVERVIEW GENERAL We primarily design, manufacture and market an extensive line of PC cards used primarily by OEMs in industrial and commercial applications. Our PC cards provide added functionality to devices containing microprocessors by supplying increased storage capacity, communications capabilities and programmed software for specialized applications. [snip] We are currently experiencing supply shortages, particularly with respect to computer memory chips used to manufacture PC cards. Currently, certain memory chips, which are integral components of our products, are on industry-wide allocation by suppliers. We have been able to purchase memory chips at reasonable prices to allow us to meet most of our customer orders and we believe we will be able to meet most of our customers' orders for the remainder of fiscal 2001. At this time we are unable to determine what the impact will be thereafter. If the current shortages continue or become more severe, such shortages will prevent us from continuing to grow our business as we currently contemplate and may have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. We also believe some of our competitors have had difficulty obtaining certain components and our success in obtaining such components has given us a competitive advantage. [snip] INTENSE COMPETITION COULD REDUCE OUR MARKET SHARE AND HARM OUR FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE. The market in which we compete is intensely competitive. We compete with manufacturers of PC cards and related products, including M-Systems Flash Disk Pioneers Ltd., SanDisk Corporation, Simple Technologies, Smart Modular Technologies, Inc., Viking Components, Inc. and White Electronic Designs Corporation as well as with electronic component manufacturers who also manufacture PC cards, including Hitachi Semiconductor, Inc., Mitsubishi Electric Corporation and Sharp Electronics Corporation. Certain of these competitors supply us with raw materials, including electronic components, which are occasionally, and are at present, subject to industry-wide allocation. These competitors may have the ability to manufacture products at lower costs than we can as a result of their higher levels of integration. In addition, many of our competitors or potential competitors have greater name recognition, larger installed bases of customers, more extensive engineering, manufacturing, marketing, distribution and support capabilities and greater financial, technological and personnel resources than we do. Clearly, obtaining flash for the final products is key. Dr. Harari addressed this issue in an article from last May... techweb.com "New dedicated flash fabs will be "commissioned" by large flash OEM users working with the leading flash suppliers. Flash supply from foundries alone will not be able to meet the flash requirements of the smaller fabless companies, who will have to develop special relationships to get their flash." FWIW, Ausdauer