Although the proliferation of flash card formats benefits Sandisk (and not Lexar, for example), I don't believe it is correct to assume that Sandisk is responsible for it. Many of the electronics giants (Sony, Toshiba, Panasonic) were reluctant to adopt compactflash and started going their own ways (memorystick, smartmedia). Although we all love compactflash (I also have tried to buy only CF gadgets so far, with one exception) it's obvious that its bulky form factor is a problem for designers trying to shrink the size of the smaller gadgets. And when secure content became an issue for standard adoption, it was obvious that something new was needed. Sandisk entered the Japanese Giant War by making sure it was in with Toshiba and Panasonic (SD), but ended up with a slice of the memorystick pie as well. Kudos to Harari for that. But you can't blame Sandisk for all the form factors out there -- this was a result of both evolving requirements (size, encryption) and big-company warfare (Sony, Panasonic, Toshiba).
Also, as the cost of flashcards is going down the negative impact of multiple formats on consumers is also being reduced. How often do we use the same CF card on more than one device these days? |
