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

To: inaflash who wrote (33626)	9/30/2006 3:04:02 PM
From: Sam	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 60323

There was a rumor floated last week about STX buying WDC. It struck me as ludicrous, not only because of antitrust concerns but because STX hasn't yet integrated Maxtor (whose building Sandisk has taken over). And because WDC has its own source of heads, unlike Maxtor, so there wouldn't be the same synergies possible in a WDC-STX combination. But it would not be ludicrous for Samsung to take WDC over. Just starting another rumor--pure speculation/observation on my part.

To: inaflash who wrote (33626)	9/30/2006 9:03:01 PM
From: Pam	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 60323

They're being realistic about the need for a 32GB flash drive costing $1000 versus 200GB hard drive costing $200. Though the gap is closing, it's not closing that fast. The average company isn't going to go flash at these prices. What works in favor for the average road warrior where this tradeoff might take place is that not all need (or necessarily want) to use 200GB on the road. Would you want 200GB of your companies databases on all your employees hard drives? Inaflash, what are you talking about? You have completely digressed from the point Samsung executive was alluding to and also from the remarks the poster has made at the end of the write-up! Those whose work mainly involves Word/Excel/Powerpoint could most likely live with 32GB (I'd even argue 16GB is sufficient for some), and having half the weight and twice the battery life (say 2 pounds and 8 hours) would be more desirable than more hard drive capacity. The power users will still require hard drives and fast processors, as weight and battery life become lower priorities. I hope you are not implying that using SSFD will reduce the notebook weight by 50% and if you are not implying that, the overall weight reduction is not that significant for normal notebooks and many users may not even feel the difference considering the amount of stuff people carry along with their laptops. As for the light weight machines, like VAIO's and UMPC's, that Sony and Samsung are selling, this weight reduction would certainly be felt by the end-user but it will nowhere close to 2 lbs you are referring to and the battery life will definitely not double considering the chief culprit in power consumption is the LCD screen. From the reviews that I have read they are just talking about a 30% reduction in power consumption that was being consumed by the HDD and not the overall power consumption. I very much doubt that battery life will be extended by 4 hrs just by replacing HDD with a SSFD. My take on the last answer. Samsung lacks the incentive to bring the "flash top" to marekt too soon. They are leveraged to the DRAM biz, already ramped up for that production, and enjoy decent market share of HD laptops. Most important it does not have SNDK's IP and R&D dept. It depends on it when it comes to flash. What the poster is saying here is that since Samsung is already making good margins in DRAM biz and ramping-up capacity further to exploit their leadership position in DRAMs and they also have a good marketshare in HDDs for the laptop market, they see no reason to push nand flash in SSFD too hard right now. Of course, this is the poster's opinion and not mine. I am just interpreting what he is saying.