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

To: slacker711 who wrote (26882)	10/25/2004 12:11:06 PM
From: slacker711	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 60323

Two New IPods May Launch By First Half Of 2005 forbes.com Merrill Lynch said Apple Computer (nasdaq: AAPL - news - people ) will likely introduce two new offshoots of its popular iPod MP3 player by the first half of 2005. "We believe Apple could introduce a flash memory-based iPod in the first quarter of 2005," it said. "The new iPod would signal a departure from the thinking that an iPod should hold all a person's songs. We estimate that Apple might be able to charge $149 for a 256 MB (60 song) unit. We think Apple could quickly become a significant player in the fragmented $2.6 billion flash MP3 market." The research firm said iPod sales (2 million units) comprised 23% of total revenue last quarter. "We look for 2.7 million to be sold during the Christmas quarter, a potentially conservative estimate given that Hewlett-Packard (nyse: HPQ - news - people ) only took 120,000 units last quarter and component provider Synaptics (nasdaq: SYNA - news - people ) expressed a strong outlook." In addition, Merrill Lynch said a photo iPod may be released in the near future. "Since iPods are already being used as portable hard drives (HDDs) for files, we believe a Photo iPod is likely to be announced, perhaps in the first half of next year," the firm said. Merrill Lynch maintained a "buy" rating and $49 price target on Apple, based on a 1.6 times enterprise value-to-sales ratio, which it noted was a 20% discount to Dell (nasdaq: DELL - news - people ).

To: slacker711 who wrote (26882)	10/25/2004 8:28:20 PM
From: Art Bechhoefer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 60323

Re: Transflash. My guess is that SNDK must have some patents here, just as they do on the SD and miniSD. There is an analogy between the various physical sizes of flash memory and the various sizes of film in the photographic industry. No single size works for all applications. A company that has a strong retail presence for all popular sizes and shapes of flash memory is going to have potentially greater profit margins than another company that supplies flash memory to other marketing companies. SanDisk seems to have the retail brand name now, whereas Samsung's products appear mainly with other labels (including SanDisk). With the commanding position SanDisk has in its retail brand name, I find it difficult to understand why some investors would turn away from the stock, and meanwhile, others seem to be boosting Google beyond anyone's wildest imagination (or even earnings projection). Put another way, why would Google surge upwards and SanDisk fall to a point where its forward looking price-earnings ratio is well below earnings growth projections? Art Art