So $1400 seems even more for $512MB. Do you think joe six pack is going to spring for these things?
J. SixPack is probably not the intended market for the ultra high-density products at this time. But I am a heavy techno-user, use a lot of graphics apps, etc., etc. and I remember paying around $800 for a 500mb HARD DRIVE way back when. I had also passed on a heavily discounted 1.2gb hard drive at $1400 and kicked myself later since this price (at the time) was a gift from the data storage gods! (I prefer the NPOMG to be of fairly high-resolution which demands higher memory capacity.) Prices have obviously changed significantly, but there were plenty of high-end, early-adopters shelling out the big bux and spreading the word. Others may not need the megs, but will follow the earlybirds and buy SanDisk products. Same thing will happen here except that the magnetic hard disk drive - no matter what the capacity - had some huge drawbacks, size and power reqs., that limited it's applications. Since they pretty much only went into computers there was a limited set of demand drivers, and they were fairly readily "commoditized" with the price dropping steeply.
Now CF, on the other hand, still has only scratched the surface in its applicability for new, never-before-seen, must-have, gadgets. Demand will continue to escalate exponentially, keeping supply constrained and prices firm for a lot longer than the disk drive or memory chip market IMHO.
1 GB of non-volatile, low-power memory that fits in the palm of your hand will change the world. |
