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

To: Ausdauer who wrote (27755)	3/26/2005 1:01:40 PM
From: slacker711	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 60323

Lexar didn't mention anything about... ...positioning themselves for the gaming and MP3 markets or cellphones? No SD, mini-SD or micro-SD in the future for them? Don't see how Kodak and Memory Stick Pro are going to save them I think they mentioned something about selling MP3 players...but it is hard to see how they have any advantage here. They'll be paying the same as Apple for their flash supply and they dont have a brand name. I might have missed it, but I didnt here any mention of addressing the cellphone market. At one point, Lexar talked about using their technical expertise to concentrate on more high-end opportunites. When you combine that with their comments about streamlining their SKU's, emphasizing profitibility over growth, and building to order instead of forecast, it seems to me that Lexar isnt really even pretending to address the entire flash market. Their comments about the fact that Sandisk/Toshiba cant supply the entire market is an admission that they just cant compete with Sandisk's pricing. One immediate effect of this....if you were going to build an app for a smart USB drive, would you use U3 (Sandisk/M-Systems) or Lexar's initiative, which might not be around in a year? Slacker

To: Ausdauer who wrote (27755)	3/26/2005 4:15:47 PM
From: clix	Respond to of 60323

They did say that they are starting SD production. Also that they plan to focus more on their higher-margin products (they also called them the "premium" products) which are not necessarily the high-density cards, where they said Sandisk has an advantage. Regarding the Sandisk MP3 players: Giving them as presents sounds like a good idea (I also gave a couple last Christmas) -- but the main problem with these gadgets is not the small display, it is the user interface. They have crammed a lot of functionality in these, so the few buttons are used in various combinations for many different purposes. To make things worse, pressing a button briefly has a different effect from pressing and holding for a few seconds. The PDF manual for these players is 30 pages long and is more complex than the manuals that come with most computers these days. These are dream machines for gadget-oriented people, but not for the hoi polloi. If you give them to people who are not technically inclined, plan on giving a seminar as well (and allow a few hours to prepare for it). Lexar has given no indication that they will go after anyone else besides Toshiba for theft of trade secrets. Even if Sandisk took such secrets from Toshiba, I believe Toshiba is culpable under the law. Their intention now is to go after royalties for their patents. The way they spoke about Sandisk (in the trial), Sandisk seems to have licensed their entire IP portfolio. But obviously the royalties they pay are quite low -- that may have been the result of cross-licensing. Curious if Samsung will pay additional royalties to Sandisk for MLC, or whether MLC royalties will replace other SLC-specific ones. If MLC royalties are additional, this could increase Sandisk's IP income significantly.