From the Oct 19 Forbes:
selected excerpts about Matsushita, p156: "In March the co. will begin to sell a key building block for the portable future: the SD (smart digital) memory card. It's a square about the size of a postage stamp that will be able to hold an hour's music. MP3 lovers beware: it'll offer copyright protection. People will be able to download an hour's music in 5 seconds. You could then listen by sticking the tiny card into your mobile phone or a tiny player that can be hung over the ear.
By 2002 the little chips will be able to hold 1 gig of info., enough to hold 1,000s of digital pictures or to allow the creation of video cameras no bigger than a cigarette box. Matsushita predicts that by 2005 there will be an $80B market for SD memories and devices that use them.
Sony, pushing a rival "memory stick" will produce a fascinating array of mainly conceptual..." etc. etc.
"...A memory-stick walkman will hit the market early next year, a Sony official says.
Here again, however, Matsushita has trumped Sony by lining up more allies." (a reference to the Beta/VHS wars, won by Matsushita in large measure by the simple expediency of lining up more allies) "Its SD memories are backed by a consortium (Matsushita, San Disk and Toshiba) that already controls 90% of the global market for flash memory chips. So far, only Sony sells its memory sticks, though the company hints that other companies may soon follow"
Good article. Question, Art: this business of "sticking a tiny card into a portable phone"; is this a SIM card? Can CDMA phones theoretically utilize a SIM card of this nature, for this purpose?? TIA |
