Lindy, I dedicate this post to you and direct you and others interested in SanDisk to my most recent rant on the SNDK Thread...
Message 13371770
I have attempted to emulate the degree of precision and purity demonstrated by members of this thread, most notably Uncle Frank, Lindy and Mike (among others) and to conceal uncertainty in new and creative ways in the hope that it is rendered imperceptible. I both dislike and relish being "called" on points which don't wash, yet pride myself on refusing to be a purist forced to remain true to the rigorous definition of Gorillas and Kings. This brings me to my current bone picking session.
Please review this release (excerpted for clarity)...
U.S. Federal District Court Rules That Lexar Infringes on Key SanDisk Flash Memory Patent
(http://www.siliconinvestor.com/research/story.gsp?s=SNDK&id=508654)
Eli Harari, SanDisk CEO and president, said, "Judge Breyer's ruling vindicates our stand with regard to Lexar's infringement of SanDisk's '987 patent. We had on several occasions offered a patent cross-licensing agreement to Lexar under reasonable terms, but Lexar rejected our proposals. Our strategy has been, and remains, to license our patents to enable an open, competitive market for flash cards. We believe that this ruling strongly reaffirms SanDisk's pioneering innovations in flash memory storage and are optimistic that it will pave the way for other flash memory card suppliers that are not currently licensed by SanDisk to negotiate cross-licenses with SanDisk."
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Nobody can equal Dr. Harari with regard to his clarity, the refreshing spirit of intent, and honesty. It took me a several pages last year to convey the message which he has distilled in one or two lines.
Lindy "called" me on the contents of the following post which essential represents a retooling of one chapter of my original Gorilla Game thesis for flash memory.
"Open and Proprietary"
Message 13361164
The notion of control, unthrottled market domination and creation of a sole vendor is, in my opinion, distasteful. It calls to mind such related concepts as anti-competitive spirit, intentional destruction of competitors, price fixing, and the like. It also risks the stagnation of further development of the core specifications unless done so to throw competitors off balance. This seems to be less than a healthy environment for innovation. Some will contend that such priviledges are owed to the company able to engineer a dominant, proprietary standard. This may be true, yet it also creates a great deal of animosity. The recent investigations on such Gorillas as Intel and Microsoft underscore the distaste that many harbor for such giants.
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The goal of a consortium... is to create a market enviroment similar to a proprietary, open architecture which can be applied to a given discontinuous innovation. It represents a more calculated election or creation of a defacto standard and, in essence, eliminates the possibility of dominant Gorilla. It also leads us to a more royal existence. An existence with Kings, Princes and Serfs. It is the type of environment that engenders much less in the way of scrutiny, animosity and distaste. It is a more politically correct form of "socialistic" capitalism or a collective that rewards ingenuity and innovation, offers outstanding value to the consumer, encourages continual improvement and upgrading while at the same time avoiding the discontent common to Gorilla markets. It is this type of arrangement that defines SanDisk's approach to the flash memory market.
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Here is where I blew it!!! The problem with these statements is principally the last sentence. At the time I originally wrote this particular paragraph I did not fully understand the ongoing litigation regarding CF assembly. Indeed, SanDisk's invention, CompactFlash, is not the product of a consortium. It is, in fact, a proprietary standard which has been opened up in the most unrestrictive way to allow multiple participants, to spur innovation, to engender friendly competition and to bring cost down both to OEM's utilizing the CF product and to consumers. The proof of this is the fact that there are now 44 members of the CompactFlash Association who are producing their own brand of CF.
compactflash.org
The distinction I originally wished to make in this chapter was that SanDisk has positioned itself in the territory demarcated on either boundary by "consortium" at one extreme and "overbearing, monopolistic, overly-proprietary & 'open' standard" on the other.
Simply put, a new genus and phylum.
Ausdauer |
