Elizabeth,
Thanks for your message. I have asked a friend who has attended CES to send me the following report.
Cheers,
Derek
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...
DVD and MP3 are the most visible new products at CES. Everywhere you look there is another Solid State MP3 player. RCA has put a super large Lyra banner that hangs in the front lobby.
Panasonic has a very impressive SD pavilion. It is showing many gadgets from MP3-Watch, Personal Audio Player, Cordless phones, Car Audio, Microwave Oven, etc.
Toshiba has a private area. I understand that they are showing many devices using SD.
Casio is showing off its new MP3 Watch with MMC.
AudioVox, Ericsson, Sanyo, Clarion and others are among some of the well-known names that showing solid state players with MMC.
Sandisk has a moderate size booth but in a very good location. They are showing many of their MMC and CF designs including Ericsson, Nokia phones, JVC camcorder, Casio watch, RCA Lyra (CF)as well as more than 15 MP3 players (one of these is a cassette player with MMC slot that works!). They have a listening station where one can listen to some of these players. They are showing samples of 192MB and 320MB(Type II) CF and 64MB MMC. They have a magician with pretty cool tricks that draws a large crowd to their booth. They also have several CF digital cameras on display.
SD Announcement was held in a large room that was packed with people on Thursday. Many people were standing in the back of the room.
Eli, Nelson Chan and two high level executives from Panasonic and Toshiba introduced SD Association. They mentioned that many new designs based on SD would be announced soon. Eli was very excited that so many companies in such a short time not only had endorsed SD but also were designing products based on SD. He categorized these companies as follows (to the best of my memory recollection):
Audio Players: Sharp, Diamond, LGE, Kenwood, Alpine, Onkyo, JVC, Casio, Clarion and many others
Computer: IBM, HP, Compaq, Casio ...
Telecom: Qualcomm, Motorola, NEC ...
Music Content: Universal, EMI
Internet Audio/Security: Microsoft, Liquid Audio, RealNetworks, InterTrust, Audible, IBM, Rioport.com
Software (OS): Microsoft, Symbian
MP3 /Controller Engine : TI, ARM, Micronas, MediaQ, Zoran
Digital Camera: Kodak, Canon, Olympus, Nikon
Automobile : Toyota, Honda
VP of Marketing from QUALCOMM and a director of Technology from KODAK gave a brief talk in support of SD. Qualcomm guy made references to the importance of SD for telecommunication market and cell phone devices.
There were few questions at the end. There was a panel of members of three companies and each member offered his answer to each question.
Q : Sony Memory Stick vs. SD
A:
1) Sony MS is proprietary but SD is open standard.
2) Sony does not have any Flash capabilities and buys Flash from other manufacturers. SD is supported by two of the leaders in Flash storage.
3) Toshiba rep: Fighting for standards is nothing new to us. We fought a war with DVD and we beat them (Sony).
4) Panasonic rep: I was responsible for development of VHS. I believe that the result of that War is obvious to you.
Q: There was a question about the royalty and licensing cost of SD.
A:
There is no running royalty for the host manufacturers. There is a maximum of $5000 annual fee for joining SD Association. This fee covers the administration expenses of the association.
There is a licensing cost required for the card manufacturers. |
