I would add one product to the list of competition to n-Hand - hard disks.
There is already a digital camcorder (uses MPEG) that uses an internal hard disk.
I do think that this one is a tough battle. Rotating disks in a camera (yea, I include hard disks) are going to be troublesome. The mechansim is a bit on the large size vs. the new smaller flash memory cartriges. And people don't always treat their cameras well - the mechanism is likely to collect dirt. (I expect that people will treat their "solid state" cameras even worse than regular ones.)
Key is the question of whether people prefer storing pictures on individual disks, or transferring to a computer. If everyone had a computer, the latter is probably more convenient - no shuffling to find the right disk - you can keep them all on your hard disk and index them easily.
If people are going to keep pictures on individual disks, then nHand makes sense, since cost prohibits doing this with flash.
If people are going to keep pictures on their hard disk, (making copies onto Zips, e-mailing to friends, etc.), then I'm not sure that n-Hand makes a lot of sense. People may have a need for a few disks, used the same way that flash memory is now, but they will use those few disks over and over. And they won't be as convenient or small or reliable as flash.
(But of course, there's another option, which is transfering to the computer and than to Zip - I still think everything on the hard disk wins.)
n-Hand certainly is a speculative product. I would prefer to value IoMega without considering nHand, and you get a speculative opportunity "for free'. |
