John, I am really excited about SanDisk's commitment to digital photography.
For all the money they saved in advertising the past few years it would appear that they are going to open up their wallets and promote the Digital Portal self-service kiosks. Many competitors (Lexar Media included) have gone the route of opening on-line photo developing sites. These may be great, but the marketplace is crowded with offerings at this point and it is hard to distinguish yourself from competitors. Also, the on-line sites do not eliminate the one barrier we continue to struggle with...
...the PC connectivity issue.
SanDisk is going to tackle several issues related to the self-service kiosk market. As someone who has used the Kodak kiosks before I have some strong opinions about the user experience and the value of the service. SanDisk's advantages will be as follows...
First, superb photo quality, made possible by the PMI patented LCD Booster technology, which provides a picture resolution of 15 million pixels, far in excess of the resolution of any digital camera.
The current Kodak kiosks use a dye-sub printing process which yield good, but not outstanding image quality. I don't believe the resolution is anywhere near 15 million pixels.
Second, high quality silver halide processing, the same process as used in 1 hour print services.
The silver halide process will likely afford color-fastness. It will be closer to the type of color reproduction most people are used to seeing with traditional photo labs. These features offer a distinct advantage over most inkjet printers and current dye-sub offerings.
Third, a simple, interactive and user friendly interface which will personalize the print selection process in a way not possible with over the counter 1 hour photo printing services.
The Kodak kiosks are really designed for scanning and printing photos in instances where people have lost the negatives. There is usually a CD-ROM and floppy drive available, but no dedicated drives for CF, SM, MS or other storage cards. Many times the store help don't even know that the kiosks accept cards like CompactFlash. Also, you have to bring the PCMCIA adapter with you to print.
Fourth, a price per print matching that of 1 hour prints today while outputting the first 4 x 6 print in less than three minutes and with an additional fifteen seconds for each subsequent print.
Kodak's service is way too expensive and only offers 8 1/2 x 11 print sizes.
Fifth, web connectivity to allow the user to share the digital photo experience.
I think I will be moving all my photo albums to SanDisk's site!!! Sorry, PhotoPoint, but it was fun while it lasted! I am sure they will be able to promote this site via a voucher system in the CF card packaging. This will be a big bonus for SanDisk CF users and will allow SanDisk to present itself in a more vibrant Internet atmosphere than currently exists. Also, SanDisk will be getting recognition as the leader in digital photography, hopefully displacing Kodak's old economy position as the leader in emulsion film photography.
...the kiosks, once widely deployed, will quickly become popular because they will accept virtually any storage media used in digital cameras today including CompactFlash(TM) and SmartMedia cards, MultiMediaCards, Secure Digital cards, the Memory Stick, floppy disks and CD ROMs.
Did they say MMC and SDMC. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!
I wonder if these will double as music kiosks, too.
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All IMHO.
Ausdauer
Goodbye PhotoPoint, Hello Digital Portal |
