Thanks Jacob,
No, No one has answered my question yet. I was inquiring, specifically what IS the nature of SanDisks proprietary property that will propel it to a gorilla. I understand they have a product 'compact flash' (or some thing similar). I have a belief that flash memory of this type will be very important in the coming years but I also know they are up against some very large companies with competing types of flash memory.
Most of the talk about flash memory has centered around photography, and I believe that SNDK is at least becoming a king in this area. However this is not a gigantic market when compared to others that will need similar technology.
One reason I think flash memory will be so important is the MP3 revolution. Although the sound quality is not nearly as good as CDs and not even close to vinyl, MP3s are so convenient it's scary. For instance I'll be going back packing soon. An MP3 Player is so tiny compared to any other playback device...
Most people are unaware that the music business is FAR larger than the movie business.
I can see flash memory coming down in price so far as to begin to replace hard drive space (or at least co-mingle with hard drives) in desktops as a way to speed up computers. No matter how fast your processor is, reading files and applications off hard drives is still too slow in my opinion.
One can easily envision flash memory "hard drives" large enough to contain several applications, or particularly large files.
I think that there will be far more devices that use flash memory than people think. I held similar views on online commerce years ago when pundits were predicting large inroads but far less than actually happened.
I also think that predictions about the growth of bandwith are too low. What would you rather upgrade: a 1Gb processor to a 1.5Gb processor or 56K to DSL? No question in my mind - DSL wins hands down.
Anyway, I'm aware of the theoretical principles behind Gorilla/King but what I don't know is why some of the companies on the portfolio are there. RNWK in particular. With competition from QuickTime, Microsoft, and MP3s I just don't see it making much inroads except as a way for media distribution companies to demo products. Sun might be another.
That is why I inquired about the qualifications of most of the list. Some, as I said, are self evident, EMC, Microsoft, etc. |
