Shares of flash memory chipmaker SanDisk (SNDK) are falling $1.89, almost 11 percent, to $15.75 this afternoon following a note by Citigroup analyst Craig Ellis today that says 2009 earnings estimates are in jeopardy for the company because contract prices for flash are plummeting.
Forget about customer satisfaction or superiority of image quality. The real issue in the war between Blu-ray and HD DVD was about royalties.
With the competition gone, the Blu-ray consortium now has the opportunity to persuade PC makers and consumer-electronics makers to adopt Blu-ray drives as their optical drives of choice. It will also get studios and disc makers to deliver Blu-ray discs to consumers. And every time one of those drives or discs leaves a factory, the Blu-ray Disc Association will get a royalty.
What do I do now?
In 1991, I released my first record on MCA (or MCI, as my mom always mistakenly told her friends, hoping to impress them). I was bummed, as I had just missed the opportunity to have my face big on an album cover. But vinyl was over, and the CD format (with [...]
The bell is tolling for Webcasting in the U.S. after the Copyright Review Board refused to alter the new proposed royalty rates, which represent an enormous hike in the money online radio stations must pay. The new rates take effect July 16, and a coalition of Webcasters led by the popular Pandora are pleading that their business will go away with these new payment obligations.
This is a section of the All Things Digital Web site featuring posts from around the Web, from other Dow Jones properties and also original pieces we solicit. The section is now explicitly labeled that it comes "from other Web sites."
We are fully aware of the controversies around how linking and aggregating is done on the Web and we, in no way, are attempting to "scrape" original content created by others. Instead, regarding third-party posts, we are trying to point readers of this site to other posts from around the Web that we admire and are trying to do so in the quickest manner possible.
The Internet is full of terrific content that is not ours and we want to help our readers find it by making editorial suggestions--Look, Mom, no algorithm!--of posts we think are worth their time.
That is why we have made even more changes to Voices to ensure we do this in the most transparent and timely way. While we don't expect that everyone will agree with our policies, we have made changes that reflect our intent in pointing to content outside our site.
So here is exactly what we do:
Because the site is wholly owned by Dow Jones, publisher of The Wall Street Journal, we aim to adhere to the journalistic standards of the best of the mainstream media. But, because it is run autonomously as a small online startup, we aim to exhibit the fresh thinking and nimbleness of the best of the new media. We want to be first, and sassy, but also well sourced and accurate. We will offer lots of opinion and analysis, but plenty of fact as well.
D is unlike any other executive conference. Since its debut in 2003, D has brought to life the energy and excitement of the digital revolution in an unscripted, upfront and unparalleled way. Read more »
Don't miss a post! Sign up for our Daily Email and get AllThingsD.com delivered each day.
Get columns, blogs and video from D and All Things Digital on your iPhone. Download now »
