Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

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 (17867)	1/1/2001 3:18:42 PM
From: limtex	Respond to of 60323

Aus - Competition mentioned in Managements Discussion:- <<1. We have announced an agreement with Matsushita and Toshiba to jointly develop and promote a next generation flash memory card called the Secure Digital Memory Card. Under this agreement, Secure Digital Memory Card royalty-bearing licenses will be granted to other flash memory card manufacturers, which will increase the competition for our Secure Digital Memory Card, CompactFlash and MultiMediaCard products 2.In addition, Matsushita and Toshiba have commenced selling Secure Digital Memory Cards that will compete directly with our products. While other flash card manufacturers will be required to pay the SD Association license fees and royalties which will be shared between Matsushita, Toshiba and SanDisk, there will be no royalties or license fees payable among the three companies for their respective sales of the Secure Digital Memory Card. Thus, we will forfeit potential royalty income from Secure Digital Memory Card sales by Matsushita and Toshiba 3.On June 30, 2000, we closed a transaction with Toshiba providing for the joint development and manufacture of 512 megabit and 1 gigabit flash memory chips and Secure Digital Memory Card controllers. We and Toshiba will each separately market and sell any products developed and manufactured under this relationship. Accordingly, we will compete directly with Toshiba for sales of these advanced chips and controllers 4.We have entered into patent cross-license agreements with several of our leading competitors including Hitachi, Samsung, Toshiba, Intel, SST, Sharp, SmartDisk and TDK. Under these agreements, each party may manufacture and sell products that incorporate technology covered by the other party's patents related to flash memory devices. As we continue to license our patents to certain of our competitors, competition will increase and may harm our business, financial condition and results of operations. Currently, we are engaged in licensing discussions with several of our competitors. There can be no assurance that we will be successful in concluding licensing agreements under terms, which are favorable to us. 5.Panasonic's Mega Storage cards, M-Systems' Diskonchip for embedded storage applications and the Secure MultiMediaCard from Hitachi and Infineon 6.Recently, Hitachi, Infineon, Sanyo and Fujitsu have proposed their Secure MultiMediaCard which provides the copy protection function that is included in our Secure Digital Memory Card. Should this initiative gain industry wide acceptance, it may reduce the widespread adoption of the Secure Digital Memory Card. Any views on the progress of any of these potential competitive products? Best regards, L