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

To: Sleeperz who wrote (2074)	12/11/1997 9:46:00 PM
From: Mike Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 60323

Re: Toshiba said that according to industry data, SmartMedia was used in about 71 percent of digital cameras in 1996. CR Lum, We are in 1997 now approaching 1998. Every source of info that I have seen indicated that in 1997, CF has between 80 to 90% of the market. Could you point out the url to your up to date source of info for SmartMedia? If you check the news on Sandisk, you will see that most of the camera makers and flash manufacturers signed up Sandisk and CF between Dec 1996 and August 1997. That may explain for your "discrepancy". sandisk.com Volume in the last few days was between normal and below average, so there is no indication of insiders selling on bad news. The stock goes down along with the market.

To: Sleeperz who wrote (2074)	12/12/1997 12:31:00 AM
From: Gary Spiers	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 60323

>>Toshiba said that according to industry data, SmartMedia was used in about 71 percent of digital cameras in 1996.<< I don't think this can be true - the SSFDC site ssfdc.com indicates that the SSFDC forum to promote the technology only formed in April of 97 - I would doubt that there were significant sales before that point BWDIK. The site has an interesting table comparing the technical features of different flash systems at ssfdc.com Some of the lines show change that has occured for example SSFDC has a listed max. (presumably available) capacity of 4MB while CF is listed as 15MB. Today of course youcan buy 32MB CF cards but the 8MB SSFDC is still hard to find. I am not sure that the write speed quoted for CF is correct but the telling line (for me) is the last one which indicates the cost of CF as high while SSFDC is low. Looking at the table I compiled recently: Message 2922772 it is clear that there is not a large price differential (despite the fact that CF has to include a controller on every card and SSFDC does not) and that the differential is reducing (the chart doesn't show this but I know from experience that CF prices are falling). When you take into account the cost of a pcmcia adaptor (the only reasonable way to move data to a desktop IMHO) then CF is cheaper. Another telling point about the progress in SSFDC is that the site proudly proclaims: 'Last Update: November 5, 1996 (11:00 PM P.S.T.)' on its home page :-) Finally to all there has been some discussion about the drop in price in recent days. This has little to do with what the company has been doing and much to do with the overvaluation (against traditional measures) of stocks coupled with SEA problems. This market wide downward movement has been on the books for some time (see for example siliconinvestor.com. FWIW we (my wife and I) took precautionary measures a couple of weeks ago - although we did not get rid of our small SNDK holding. If things continue the way they have been going for a few more days then it could be some time before this stock sees a price close to 30 again (BWDIK). Finally, if we are seeing the end of a Bull market then Eli should be congratulated for sneaking the secondary in right at the end of it - fewer shares have to be sold at 28 than at 15 to raise the required capital :-) Gary