Aus, I think it's some of the very patents you mentioned, dealing with eliminating non-working parts of the memory, etc. SNDK has so much of the fundamentals of flash memory design covered by patents that it is unlikely that either the Memory Stick or the SmartMedia cards can perform adequately without using some of these patents.
There is another issue that works against the Memory Stick - capacity. It's analagous to the competition between beta and VHS, where VHS won out because initially it could handle twice as much video recording time as beta. You'd think Sony would have learned by that experience. A similar pattern is taking place in digital cellular, where the European designed GSM is losing out to the superior CDMA system designed by QUALCOMM. Put in layman's language, a GSM channel can transmit about five conversations nearly simultaneously, whereas CDMA, because of its inherent design features can transmit at least 15 conversations on one channel. Therefore, CDMA through its design is more economical than GSM.
The technology developed by SNDK, and now being improved through cooperation with Toshiba, appears to far outdistance the competing SmartMedia and Memory Stick in capacity, and for that reason alone will succeed. |
