EDIG news
Wednesday May 26, 10:04 am Eastern Time
Company Press Release
e.Digital Corp. and Lucent Technologies Select SanDisk's
CompactFlash for Secure EPAC Internet Music Player
e.Digital Corp. and Lucent Technologies Offering OEM Customers Portable EPAC Internet Music Player Using SanDisk's CompactFlash Cards
SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 26, 1999-- e.Digital Corp. (OTCBB:EDIG - news) and Lucent Technologies (NYSE:LU - news) announced today that SanDisk Corp. (Nasdaq:SNDK - news) will supply its 32 megabyte (MB) CompactFlash(TM) (CF(TM)) memory card for use in e.Digital and Lucent's new secure EPAC (Enhanced Perceptual Audio Coding) Internet music player.
e.Digital and Lucent are jointly offering to OEM customers licensing of their reference design as well as the handheld solid-state music player. A 32MB SanDisk CompactFlash card will be included with
each portable EPAC Internet music player sold.
More than 165 products with specific slots for solid-state CF cards have been introduced thus far making it the most popular small-size storage card in the industry. SanDisk, which invented CompactFlash, sells CF cards in capacities ranging between 4 and 96MB.
Fred Falk, president of e.Digital, said, ''We are pleased to expand our ongoing relationship with SanDisk, the leader in flash memory for data storage. We chose CompactFlash for its size, high capacity, serialization feature, simple interface and reliability. Our SDMI (Secure Digital Music Initiative) compliant music player features our patented MicroOS(TM) file management system and plays music stored in Lucent's EPAC audio format, which offers high security features and excellent sound quality.''
Joyce Eastman, director of audio initiatives, Lucent's New Ventures Group, said, ''We chose SanDisk as our flash memory card vendor for its leadership in this market. We are taking the current generation of portable players to the highest levels of audio quality and design. Together with e.Digital and SanDisk, we have designed an EPAC player that offers excellent sound quality and copyright protection.''
Nelson Chan, vice president of marketing at SanDisk, said, ''With SanDisk CompactFlash being selected as the storage media for the EPAC music player, we are continuing to establish a strong foothold in the Internet music player market. SanDisk has worked very closely with Lucent Technologies and e.Digital to establish a reference design which we believe will spark new design wins for our CompactFlash card. We are pleased to be working with market innovators like e.Digital
and Lucent and plan to continue this relationship for future products in this market.''
Chan continued, ''Market research firms project that more than one million Internet music players will be sold next year followed by sales of about eight million units the following year. Both our
CompactFlash and MultiMediaCard are ideal storage solutions for these ultra-small Internet music players. Both cards also include SanDisk's unique serialization which provides copyright protection.''
The new pocket-sized EPAC Internet music player will provide CD-transparent quality playback and could include an FM radio tuner. Initially, the device will be bundled with one 32MB CompactFlash card and OEM customers will offer additional 32MB retail CompactFlash cards as accessories. The new EPAC Internet music player is scheduled to ship to OEM customers in the fourth quarter of 1999.
Also included with each sale will be EPAC encoding software and a CompactFlash card reader/writer external drive for desktop computers. SanDisk branded flash cards are sold in over 10,000 stores worldwide as well as through an extensive worldwide industrial distribution channel.
e.Digital Corp. offers an engineering partnership for the world's leading electronics companies to link portable digital devices to PCs and the Internet. Engineering services range from the licensing of
e.Digital's multi-patented MicroOS(TM) file management system to custom software and hardware development and manufacturing services. For more information on the company, visit www.edig.com.
SanDisk Corp., headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif., is the world's largest supplier of flash data
storage products, designs, manufactures and markets industry-standard, solid-state data, digital
imaging and audio storage products using its patented, high density flash memory and controller
technology. For more information on SanDisk, visit www.sandisk.com.
Lucent Technologies, headquartered in Murray Hill, N.J., designs, builds and delivers a wide range
of public and private networks, communications systems and software, data networking systems,
business telephone systems and microelectronic components. Bell Labs is the research and
development arm for the company. For more information on Lucent Technologies, visit the
company's Web site at www.lucent.com.
Safe Harbor statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: This press release
contains forward-looking statements relating to future revenues and product development that may
impact on future results and the future viability of the company. Actual results could differ materially
from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of risk factors such as future
products and results, technological shifts, using contract manufacturers, potential technical difficulties
that could delay new products, competition, pricing pressures and the uncertainty of market
acceptance of new products by distributors, OEMs and end-user customers.
CompactFlash and CF are trademarks of SanDisk Corp. Lucent and EPAC are registered
trademarks of Lucent Technologies. All trade names are either registered trademarks or trademarks
of their respective holders.
Contact:
e.Digital Corp.
Robert Putnam and Wendy Ravenel, 619/679-1504
robert@edig.com
wendy@edig.com
or
SanDisk Corp.
Bob Goligoski, 408/542-0463
bgoligoski@sandisk.com
or
Nelson Chan, 408/542-0456
nchan@sandisk.com
or
Lucent Technologies
David Bikle, 908/582-4120
dbikle@lucent.com |
