SanDisk

In the wake of a big loss posted this week by SanDisk, layoffs appear to be in the offing.

On Monday, SanDisk said in prepared remarks that as part of its efforts to reduce operating expenses, "actions will be implemented in the current quarter" and will include "canceling or exiting a number of products and marketing activities, and will result in employee reduction in R&D, Sales & Marketing, G&A, and Operations."

And on Monday during SanDisk's third-quarter earnings conference call, CFO Judy Bruner spoke about more restructuring to come. In response … Read more

Will 2009 be the year that solid-state drives take off? Maybe not. The speedy drives are catching on, but wider acceptance will take time--and the bad economy isn't helping.

Costs are still high for these drives, which typically outdo--and in some cases blow away--hard disks in performance. "2010-2011...that's when we think the price points for the SSD market get attractive enough to really drive stronger growth," Sanjay Mehrotra, president and chief operating officer of SanDisk, said this week during SanDisk's third-quarter earnings conference call.

Indeed, there is still a wide price gap between hard-disk … Read more

Updated at 11:40 p.m. with SanDisk response to Samsung letter.

Samsung on Tuesday withdrew its $5.85 billion bid for SanDisk, citing an increasing "risk profile."

This follows a new manufacturing agreement between SanDisk and Toshiba disclosed Monday and a stiff rejection by SanDisk last month of the Samsung offer.

"After nearly six months of efforts to pursue a transaction with no meaningful progress, we are withdrawing our proposal to acquire SanDisk," Yoon Woo Lee, vice chairman and CEO at Samsung Electronics, said in a letter that Samsung released Wednesday in Seoul.

"I … Read more

I recently blogged about people in Japan getting new Eee Box PCs that came with a virus on their hard drives. Now, the opposite: a new thumb drive that comes with antivirus software.

SanDisk, a maker of USB flash drives, and security giant McAfee, teamed up Tuesday to announce the SanDisk Cruzer Enterprise. The USB thumb drive comes with antimalware protection from McAfee built in.

SanDisk's Cruzer Enterprise USB flash drives have been known for being thumb drives with mandatory security for corporate users. Now, in addition to preventing data leaks by utilizing advanced hardware-based 256-bit AES encryption and … Read more

Falling somewhere between the Discman and most standard MP3 players is SanDisk's $20 Sansa slotMusic Player, an extremely basic device that works much like the original Walkman. The music media is strictly removable, songs play in album order, the battery is alkaline, and no computer is required to use it--but the player is much smaller and music playback requires no moving parts.

Read the SanDisk Sansa slotMusic Player review.

This week, Donald and Jasmine make a valiant-yet-stumbling attempt to explain LaLa's new music service.

Also on tap: SanDisk's cheap new music player made especially for slotMusic albums, super sweet earphones from Klipsch, and a grab bag of MP3 players with ultralong-lasting batteries.

Listen now: Download today's podcast… Read more

SanDisk said it is still "open" to a Samsung buyout offer and hinted at more restructuring to come, as the largest supplier of retail flash memory cards reported a third-quarter 2008 net loss of $155 million on Monday.

The loss was significantly worse than the net income of $85 million reported in the third quarter of 2007. SanDisk and other flash memory chip suppliers have been hit by a steep price decline in flash.

Operating loss, on a GAAP basis, was $250 million, compared to GAAP operating income of $109 million, in the third quarter of 2007.

The … Read more

Toshiba and SanDisk announced Monday that their joint flash memory-manufacturing ventures are being restructured. As a result, Toshiba will gain a larger ownership stake, while SanDisk will reduce costs.

SanDisk said it has entered a nonbinding memorandum of understanding with Toshiba to sell approximately 30 percent of the current manufacturing capacity of the parties' joint ventures to Toshiba. "The move will significantly reduce SanDisk's capital spending, further strengthen its balance sheet, and reduce NAND flash memory production commitments," the company said.

SanDisk said it expects to receive cash and reduce equipment lease obligations by approximately $1 billion … Read more

Toshiba is in talks to buy SanDisk's chipmaking facilities, according to Japan-based reports.

Currently, Toshiba and SanDisk jointly own flash memory manufacturing facilities in Mie Prefecture, Japan.

SanDisk is the largest supplier of retail flash drives in the U.S.

Toshiba has started negotiations to buy SanDisk's portion of the facilities, according to Nikkei. The newspaper said this is in response to Samsung's bid to buy SanDisk that was disclosed last month.

Toshiba and SanDisk have two joint ventures that manufacture NAND flash memory. SanDisk has a 49.9 percent interest in each of the ventures and … Read more