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

To: OrionX who wrote (1510)	11/13/1997 2:35:00 AM
From: Mike Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 60323

Mauro, Good digging and I agree with you 101%, but please calm down. Please let people exchange ideas about what they think, even for the purpose of downgrading the company for shorting. At the end, the truth will always win. Let me repeat my arguments earlier today. I think the fact that Iomega has been trying to sell the n.hand product to camera manufacturers for a year without success indicates that the n.hand product is not viable for the digital camera. The required criteria are, I think: ruggedness, compactness, low power consumption, durability, and affordability. CompactFlash meets all of those criteria. n.hand may meet only the second and the fifth criteria. That's why 80% of the camera makers have chosen CompactFlash. To convince the OEMs, Sandisk has probably presented a road map for several years to come showing higher storage capacity but lower price. Once the cam makers have chosen a standard for storage, it will be very difficult if not impossible to switch to a new standard. In the consumer market, a product has to have at least a 10 year lifetime. Customer loyalty will be lost if a manufacturer stops supporting its product. This Christmas season, the camera makers are planning to kick off the digital camera market. 80% of the camera makers have already chosen CompactFlash as the storage media of choice. It's now too late to pick another storage media, even if it is techonological better, which is not even the case for n.hand here compared to flash. To get the price to come down and to create less confusion to the customers, the manufacturers of consumer goods very often select standard. CompactFlash is now the defacto standard for picture storage. The customers will be able to go to any electronics store to buy it. The same CompactFlash can also be interchangeable between cameras from different brand. I believe that when CompactFlash goes into mass production, its price will drop dramatically and the price advantage of the n.hand disk will become moot.

To: OrionX who wrote (1510)	11/13/1997 3:59:00 AM
From: Mike Winn	Respond to of 60323

According to the Olympus camera, a 6 Mbytes CompactFlash can store: 120 (512X384) pixel pictures or 30 (1024X768) pixel pictures. Next year, Sandisk will introduce a 60 MBytes CompactFlash which will be able to contain 300 1024X768 pixel pictures. I think that is plenty of storage for one picture outing for the average photographer.

To: OrionX who wrote (1510)	11/13/1997 7:58:00 AM
From: Alex Abuin ?+!=$$$	Respond to of 60323

A few points: Iomega never had a Jaz recall. It had a recall on a batch of Jaz disks that didn't pass quality control standards and slipped through. Only a small percentage of these actually had been sold. It's not that Iomega hasn't had anyone sign up to use Clik for the last year. They simply asked future OEMs what they wanted and they have spent time refining, adapting and polishing the product to the OEMs specs. The idea that the lack of moving parts is a requirement for portable memory may be flawed. Iomega has developed a head-lock mechanism that is being implemented in the PORTABLE notebook Zip drive. If a Zip disk, being much larger than a Click cartridge, can be made portable, a Clik disk may withstand much rougher treatment. As far as "humidity, heat, etc", unless you are talking about the 10 dollar throwaway cameras, cameras and other hand-held devices are still treated relatively well by their owners. The zoom and winding motors, in-camera electronics, etc, may go just as fast or faster if you leave your camera on the backyard table on a dewy night. Anyway, there's room for everyone in this market. Good luck to all.