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

To: rll who wrote (5340)	4/9/1999 7:05:00 PM
From: Ausdauer	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 60323

rll, I have purchased two 48 MB CF cards since the New Year. The information I received from one vendor indicates these cards are based on older 32 Mbit technology. Some vendors sold out of these cards a few weeks ago. I think that there has been strong demand. Recall that Christmas camera purchases will lead to 1st quarter memory card purchases. On the negative side, this month's PhotoPC Magazine has little in the way of any reference to SanDisk. As usual, Lexar has a prominent ad and is featured in one of the pieces. Also of note, each month one or two new CF vendors pops up. This month there is an ad from Delkin Devices (http://www.delkin.com) offering PCMCIA type II, CF, and Smart Media cards. I am uncertain if they manufacture their own cards. This month's Handheld PC Magazine mentioned Pretec CF "plus" cards with capacities of upto 320 MB per card. This may be the CF type II card that will compete with the Microdrive by IBM and Callunacard. The article states "Pretec's CF card is compliant with the CompactFlash Type II specifications and based on 128Mbit/256Mbit "AND" chips from Hitachi, or NAND chips from Toshiba and Samsung, together with Pretec's proprietary controller and packaging technology." (typos courtesy of Pretec) The notion of a "proprietary packaging (card assembly) technology" is what has me worried. They get high grade silicon from the Hitachi, Samsung and Toshiba and create their own variety of CF. This simply bypasses all of SNDK's IP and SNDK doesn't get a nickel. The golden goose is starting to get cooked here. The NY Times piece, the CeBIT announcements by competitors, rumors of missed earnings,...all have depressed SNDK's stock price. I am just starting to get that sinking feeling I had last year. Like somebody cut the cables on the SNDK elevator and we are screaming downward to the first floor... ...or is it the bargain basement??? Ausdauer