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

To: Dave who wrote (24735)	1/23/2004 5:47:45 PM
From: Art Bechhoefer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 60323

Dave, the kiosk for printing digital images does more with what's left of Kodak than it would for SNDK. At least Kodak can sell photographic paper. But Kodak has missed the boat so many times with regard to digital photography that the company has really become an embarassing anachronism. About 10 years ago, Kodak was the leader in charge coupled devices (CCD), which continue to be the most popular technology for digital camera and video sensors. Kodak, however, limited its interest in CCD to scientific applications and allowed companies like Sony to take over the lead for consumer imaging. Why? Because Kodak was still determined to give conventional photography its highest priority and didn't want digital to interfere with old fashioned film. About three years ago, Kodak developed small size screens (up to about 4 x 5 inches), known as organic light emitting diodes. These screens display digital images with much greater brightness and color saturation than LCD screens, currently the standard for digital cameras and video. Kodak then licensed its patented process to Olympus, Sharp, and others, but declined to set up its own manufacturing plant for displays for digital cameras, PDA's, etc. Why? Because digital was still a lower priority for Kodak than conventional photography. OLED is the technology of choice for digital cameras because it's brighter, can be viewed in sunlight, and draws less current than an LCD. It is potentially no more costly than an LCD. It will probably find its way into new camera models available in the U.S. later this year. Now this was something that Kodak could have pushed harder, and possibly manufactured in one of its vacant buildings in Rochester. Yet, you don't even see an advertisement for a Kodak OLED display! Instead, they bought a digital imaging company for dental x-rays, that was far from being the leader in its field, but which Kodak bought at a premium price. They could have used some of their former cash surplus to either buy stock or buy a position in SanDisk and gain access to profits from the digital equivalent of film. Instead, they squandered their cash on ridiculously high priced acquisitons where the Kodak brand name means nothing. Dumb, dumber, dumbest. My point is that if a company like SanDisk made those kinds of decisions, it wouldn't stay in business for more than a few years. As for the value of a brand name, it does have certain value, but performance and reliability also count. Recent AMD microprocessors achieved high performance by running extremely hot, which often shortens the life of the chip. That's one reason many computer users tend to prefer Intel. I'm still not sure how much brand name really means when it comes to flash memory. A year or so ago, I recall SanDisk issuing press releases about compact flash cards being run over by a tractor, retrieved from the ocean, enduring temperature extremes, etc. But I'm not sure it made much difference in consumer demand. As to read/write speed, when I bought a Canon S30 last winter, I tried a standard 128kb SanDisk card and a 128kb Ultra. I did a similar test with the Nikon D100 and found no measureable difference in performance. At a later date, I tried a 256kb card made by Samsung on a Canon S50 and could find no difference in performance over a comparable SanDisk or Lexar card. Maybe one has to get to even higher resolution images before one can find a difference. But that's one reason I don't think the brand name matters as much to the consumer as the price. Just my guess. Art