"Another likely winner for the nascent portable-player
market is solid-state storage media. Dan Auclair, senior
vice president of business development at flash-card
maker SanDisk, in Sunnyvale, Calif., said, "For us, this
is a major opportunity. We're extremely motivated."
The company is promoting both its CompactFlash and
MultiMedia Card technologies for this market.
SanDisk announced this week that Maycom, a South
Korean consumer-electronics manufacturer, is using its
MultiMedia Card in a new MP3 player, while LG
Electronics and Pontis are also designing the same
form-factor flash card into their MP3 players.
Meanwhile, Casio earlier this month revealed that its
new portable Internet audio player, based on Windows
CE and designed for Microsoft's MS Audio, will use
SanDisk's CompactFlash card.
SanDisk's Auclair, also an SDMI member, is currently
acting as editor for an ad-hoc group within SDMI to
define interface specifications between a so-called
Licensed SDMI-Compliant Module (LCM) and
portable devices. In SDMI jargon, LCM is defined as a
protected environment where LCM systems -- such as
PCs, set-tops or Internet appliances -- receive content,
rules for content management and protection from a
variety of input sources such as CDs, DVDs, and
secure Internet music. |
