Sandisk: The Kodak of the Digital Age?

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/03/01/BUG8T5A6UE1.DTL' target='_blank'>http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/03/01/BUG8T5A6UE1.DTL</a><br /><br /></div>"Move over Kodak, it's a SanDisk moment. Riding the wave in digital photography, SanDisk, the low-profile Sunnyvale maker of memory cards, wants to become a household name for shutterbugs. <br /><br />The momentum is on the Silicon Valley firm's side. Sales of digital cameras, which use memory cards to store images, surpassed those of 35mm cameras for the first time in the United States last year. The market grew so fast that it not only outpaced one industry research firm's 2003 forecast, but also its estimate for this year. That's all good news for SanDisk, the largest supplier of memory cards, which some have dubbed the 'digital Kodak'."<br /><br />With 16.4 million digital cameras shipping world-wide last year, the industry is growing faster than most people predicted it would, and Sandisk is in a strong position to be there waiting when consumers want to buy bigger memory cards. The article goes on to explain the "Shoot and Store" concept:<br /><br />"SanDisk is now making a push to reach consumers who are not tech savvy, selling a $14.99 compact flash card, called Shoot & Store, that can hold as many as 50 images. The card is designed for people who either don't own a PC or don't want to bother downloading photos from the memory cards to their computers. Instead, the idea is to keep the cards as digital negatives."<br /><br />Now that I've learned a little more about Sandisk's approach, I see some merit in it. I can see a soccer mom getting a digital camera, a few memory cards, and a stand-alone 4x6 printer or taking her cards into Wallmart for printing. And at $15 a pop, it would be easy enough to keep a few cards lying around, or even one card for each event. Sure, that approach is fraught with issues of data integrity (no backups! 8O), but Jane soccer mom doesn't think about things like that. Sandisk is on to something here, and they're in a good position to be "the" memory card brand - they're already everywhere I look in retail. Will Sandisk succeed? I'm betting they will.

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

Still way too expensive, and trust me, if it gets too expensive, people are willing to learn how to use a computer if it'll save costs (at least here, we're famous for being cheapskates). :lol:

$14.99 is for the 32mb version, yes? If so, it'll hold about 30 three mp photos. Ouch.

[James Fee]

I think its a great idea. Most "consumers" don't have their photos that high. At 800x600 its still quite a few images.

So where does this leave us with "Digital Film"? Lexar on the high end, SanDisk on the low?

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

That is true, but 800x600 is a wee bit low. More like 1600x1200, which is about 500-700kb per image.

I still think digital film is a stupid concept. If you're going digital you might as well go the whole route. I don't think transferring photos and burning CDs is that hard nowadays. If the computer-phobics (and I do mean phobic) in my school can do it, I really don't see why others can't.

[James Fee]

That is true, but 800x600 is a wee bit low. More like 1600x1200, which is about 500-700kb per image.
Yea, that's probably more like it. Its hard for me to think about not using the highest resolution. :lol:

I still think digital film is a stupid concept. If you're going digital you might as well go the whole route. I don't think transferring photos and burning CDs is that hard nowadays. If the computer-phobics (and I do mean phobic) in my school can do it, I really don't see why others can't.
Well as Jason said, I do see many people using Walgreen's over printing at their home. At 29 cents a copy her in Arizona, that is cheaper than I can print on my printer (taking into consideration paper and ink) for 4x6. I think the thought is you don't us your own computer, but the computer at the drugstore and then choose what you want. Take your pictures, pop the card out and then insert it in the computer at Walgreen's. Can't say I'd do it that way, but I've seen these people doing it with their cards.

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

Well as Jason said, I do see many people using Walgreen's over printing at their home. At 29 cents a copy her in Arizona, that is cheaper than I can print on my printer (taking into consideration paper and ink) for 4x6. I think the thought is you don't us your own computer, but the computer at the drugstore and then choose what you want. Take your pictures, pop the card out and then insert it in the computer at Walgreen's. Can't say I'd do it that way, but I've seen these people doing it with their cards.

I'm not debating that; I do it myself! I take my digital images to the labs instead of printing them at home. It is cheaper, and easier too.

What I'm debating is the shoot and store concept, specifically this point:

The card is designed for people who either don't own a PC or don't want to bother downloading photos from the memory cards to their computers. Instead, the idea is to keep the cards as digital negatives.

Riiiiiiiight. As I said, people will be unwilling to keep on spending US$15 everytime they hit 30-50 photos. It defeats one of the advantages of digital! Here, a pack of three ISO 400 Fuji Superia is about US$7, developing them is about US$8, and I get 108-111 photos back, which can be scanned to produce about 10+ megapixels worth of usable resolution.

[James Fee]

OK, then we are on the same page. I too can't imagine someone archiving their photos on a CF or SD card. I like the concept of digital film (having 5-10 CF cards) around, but CD's are so much safer for archival.

[Jason Dunn]

OK, then we are on the same page. I too can't imagine someone archiving their photos on a CF or SD card. I like the concept of digital film (having 5-10 CF cards) around, but CD's are so much safer for archival.

&lt;shrug> I think there are some people out there that think very differently than we do, so the results of this may surprise you. ;-) I think, if anything, it's a transitional step necessary while people get used to the world of digital.

[Gary Sheynkman]

SD has certainly been slowly integrating itself into our lives. I can think of tons of devices across different fields that use SD... (in fact PPC, SMRTPHN, DGTL CMRS) wow...we talk about them alot dont we?

[James Fee]

&lt;shrug> I think there are some people out there that think very differently than we do, so the results of this may surprise you. ;-) I think, if anything, it's a transitional step necessary while people get used to the world of digital.
Fair enough, but cost begins to become a factor. As larger and larger MP cameras become "consumer" the file sizes are going to ballon. I just see this as an "Iomega" idea. You know 2 years late? :wink:

[Suhit Gupta]

&lt;shrug> I think there are some people out there that think very differently than we do, so the results of this may surprise you. ;-) I think, if anything, it's a transitional step necessary while people get used to the world of digital.
Fair enough, but cost begins to become a factor. As larger and larger MP cameras become "consumer" the file sizes are going to ballon. I just see this as an "Iomega" idea. You know 2 years late? :wink:
But then the cost of flash memory keeps going down too. I remember that I bought a 1GB CFII over a year ago for about $650+ and now is it less than one-third the price.

Suhit

[Tim Williamson]

I remember having this discussion on PPCT, and for about $5-10 more for the 64 MB card you can buy a memory card that'll allow you to write more than once to it...so why would anyone even consider buying a card you can only write once to??? I doubt this will succeed... :?

[James Fee]

But then the cost of flash memory keeps going down too. I remember that I bought a 1GB CFII over a year ago for about $650+ and now is it less than one-third the price.
Very true, but we are talking very low end here. What usually happens is the cost doesn't go down, but the memory size goes up. You can't buy a 1 mb CF card anymore. IF you could, I'm sure it would be very cheap, but what they have done is increased the memory size. I doubt we'll see the "price point" drop much lower than where they have it.

We'll see how this "idea" works in the real work when/if SanDisk gets it out. The day we see CF/SD cards in the checkout aisle at the grocery store is the day we know this worked.