[2ND UPDATE] Here's why sub-sub-standard cards suck and why EVERYBODY is loosing BIG!!

[jlp]

This is a follow up from this thread (near the end of page 2) (http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=10516&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=10)

Find my answers below.

[jlp]

Lastly, while you save a HUGE 10 ccm (10-15% of a device volume; e.g. PDA, digicams...) when choosing an SD slot vs CF (2.5 ccm vs 12.5) you just gain a ludicrous 1 ccm; i.e. 1 to 0.5 tiny minuscule percent of the device volume when going smaller than standard SD.

That's an interesting statement. Can you show me some proof? Photos/specs/etc.?

You can take a look at the link below and re-calculate what I have done already. Sorry they don't show the end result already calculated, but anybody should be able to redo it, for those who are comfortable with 3D representations on 2D 8).

Remember that the CF connector prolongs the card; the card does not fit inside the connector, the pins stick outside the connector and enters inside the female connector of the card. CF cards imperatively need thick and wide rails to precisely guide the card so that the 50 naked pins fit perfectly inside the card with the lowest possible risk to get bent.

Also the 50 pins extend behind the connector and end in flat surface to be soldered on the main board; such setup also has to be taken into the calculation for the space required for a CF slot.

On the other hand SD cards have their conectors below them protected inside grooves. And it looks like the slot -the mechanism inside which SD/MMC cards are inserted- are really tiny, barely bigger than the card itself; much smaller compared to CF rails/connector combos.
On this product page from an actual connectors manufacturer you'll find all the data on CF & SD connectors:
http://catalog.tycoelectronics.com/TE/bin/TE.Menu?M=MENU&ID=17574&BML=10576,17560&LG=1&I=13
Feel free to re-calculate everything (taking everything into consideration) and post your findings here.

[jlp]

...why I think Sandisk is loosing millions in pushing their microSD sub-sub-standard.

How do you know they're "losing millions"? Do you have financial statements to show this? You seem to be a big believer in conspiracy theories, but I need some proof.
((emphasis added))


Conspiracy? NO, just plain stupidity!!

Remember Hanlon's Razor which says: "Never assume malice when stupidity will suffice" :lol:

PART 1: Where cards manufacturers loose big:

Here's why:

Well I don't know your professional education, but you have to understand there are 2 kinds of data sets we are to consider here.

First what I would call the "tangible" data:
Financial reports only represent that "tangible" data: how much was sold of what, where and when.

But it does not and will never say why:

Even the best financial analyst could not estimate on the "intangible" data:

How much of these sales figures were influenced by:
company price policies
attractiveness of competing products,
competing products prices and
competing brand awareness and reputation
local and global economies
the release of x attractive devices (say company XYZ releases a killer moviecam, thus enticing consumers to buy memory cards for them)
etc.
I guess by now you get my point.

So, HOW can I then pretend Sandisk is loosing millions pushing their substandard formats?

Simple; two answers, at least:
People tend to buy amongst the 2 (maybe 3) highest capacity cards available. Flash cards or HDD you keep buying bigger storage supports all the time. You know you do :wink:.
And because the higher the card capacity the more they cost and because substandard cards come in much lower capacities, people buy 256 MB to 1 GB miniSD or microSD cards instead of 1, 2 and 4 GB SD cards thus spending barely over a quarter of what they would spend on standard SD cards.
And second because of all those different standards, people are very reluctant to buying all the cards they need (want) because they know these @#!!# stupid engineers will release yet-another-d@mn-standard in 6 months and they better keep their investment to the strictest minimum.

Now there might be other reasons that slow down people's investments, reasons that I probably thought about a while back and are in the back of my head sleeping for now... and I should do the same quickly... it's...ahem... early morning now, out here.

But you get the point quite well I presume. I can't say exacly how much SanDisk & co loose, but it's a sure guess to pretend they loose millions of $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.

[jlp]

Now that's for the cards manufacturers.

But other third parties also loose BIG because of that.

But let's keep it for another post...

[jlp]

[u]PART 2: Where the phone manufacturers loose big:


For the very same reasons as stated above, they are loosing big too:
as they often sell memory cards as well, they rake much less money because lower capacity cards sell for less.
people are reluctant to buying devices when they know their existing standard cards won't obviously fit in sub-standard slots (read below)
if people really need to buy cards for these devices they will buy the lowest capacity possible because they know they won't fit in many other devices using those other s-i-x competing sub-standard formats: say your cellphone uses miniSD, your Sandisk Sansa E2xx uses microSD and your digicam uses xD picture card; even though you find backward adapters (e.g. microSD to SD) you can't find cross adapters (miniSD to xD, even not microSD to miniSD, etc.)

Consider that the Motorola MPx-200 had a full size standard SD slot and that the newer MPx-220 only has a substandard miniSD slot, while the newer is larger than the older.

Likewise all the SonyEricsson K700, K750, K800 and K810 do feature a memory slot quite similar in size with standard SD cards, yet these phones are amongst the smaller ones with memory cards.

There are other example worth investigating, but those are enough I suppose.

Therefore I pretend it's very possible to include a fullsize standard SD slot in a relatively small cell phone.

[jlp]

[u]PART 3: Where the cell phone operators loose big:

Since their customers' cards are of much smaller capacities, these will shoot less pictures and movies and therefore send less multimedia messages (MMS).
Also phone operators manage song download services and obviously the less capacity the card, the smaller the number of songs people will buy 8O.

Thus again cell phone operators are loosing millions because phone manufacturers and card manufacturers push the WRONG sub-standards.

[jlp]

[u]PART 4: Where the end users loose big:

And last but not least, the fourth category concerned, the end users:

Because their cards are of much lower capacity:
people can shoot less pix and movies
saving those pix and movies take much longer because these substandards are also sub-par with transfer speeds
they can store less songs
the monetary disadvantage is important here too because lower capacity always means higher prices per MB
and that's not even counting all the frustrations because of the total incompatibilities between, count them, s-i-x different sub SD sized sub-standard cards: miniSD, microSD, MMCmicro (totally different from microSD), RS-MMC (aka MMCmobile), MemorySH!T micro (aka M2) and xD cards.
[ADDED] And because of all those different standards, people are very reluctant to buying all the cards they need (want) because they know these @#!!# stupid engineers will release yet-another-d@mn-sub-sub-standard in 6 months and they better keep their investment to the strictest minimum; obviously enough something that hurts sales b-a-d-l-y too.

[Jason Dunn]

There's one very obvious question: then why do manufacturers do it? Why do they use miniSD instead of SD, or microSD instead of miniSD? You've stated in 30 different ways that users lose, manufacturers lose, etc. So why do they do it?

PS - The word is "where" not "were".

[jlp]

There's one very obvious question: then why do manufacturers do it? Why do they use miniSD instead of SD, or microSD instead of miniSD? You've stated in 30 different ways that users lose, manufacturers lose, etc. So why do they do it?

Well you ask them. I could ask you 1,000s of such questions...

Why millions smoke when smoking kills every other smoker?
Why millions over eat when that causes lots of health problems (and incomfort...)?
etc. etc. etc.

As I said it: plain stupidity :roll:

Simplistic, stupid thinking:
I guess they equal:
- because smaller devices = what people want
- and smaller cards = smaller devices
so let's use smaller slots/cards.

Without looking any further as to how smaller the devices will be and what the inconveniences will be for themselves (manufacturers) and other industry partners (telcos) and end-users.

Just likewise today's investors only look at the short term instead of the long term, etc. etc.

Maybe we reached the peak of the evolution curve and people become "Dumb and Dumber" :lol:

[Jason Dunn]

JLP, are you familiar with Occam's Razor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_Razor)? It states that the most simple explanation is usually the correct one.

The simplest explanation for this situation is that entire industries with tens of thousands of smart people probably have good reasons for using smaller memory formats, and that you are simply incorrect about it being "stupidity".

[jlp]

JLP, are you familiar with Occam's Razor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_Razor)? It states that the most simple explanation is usually the correct one.

The simplest explanation for this situation is that entire industries with tens of thousands of smart people probably have good reasons for using smaller memory formats, and that you are simply incorrect about it being "stupidity".

Yes I know of it since the movie "Contact" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118884/); and you're exactly right and my expanations completely agree with Occam's Razor.

The simplest explanation is just that they never thought of all the consequences in choosing sub-standard technologies. Look no further. Or else they would not have chosen them and loose millions as I've demonstrated.

Plus making everybody else loose big too.

However do YOU realize you're opposing hypothetical and unknown and until laid out probably inexistent reasons to my hard facts demonstrations?

Do you really believe there are more important "possibly" technological reasons more important than loosing millions?

I really doubt there are tens of thousand of engineers working in developing electronic devices. Even if you're right 99.95% of them just populate the boards and wire the chips and components and test prototypes. No more than a couple dozens have any power of decision as to which technology to employ; these are up to the Technology Managers and Directors.

And EVEN IF you were right in thinking "intelligent" engineers might have good reasons this does absolutely NOT explain why they choose different cards, of which s-i-x different sub-standards have been designed (with more coming and being adopted every few months).

Because even the SAME manufacturer uses up to f-o-u-r different card sub-standards:
Motorola: 1) SD, 2) miniSD, 3) microSD (ex-Transflash)
Nokia is the worst (followed soon by Samsung); their current lineup uses 4 of them: 1) MMC, 2) RS-MMC (aka MMCmobile), 3) microSD, 4) miniSD (even on models big enough to accomodate CF slots, let alone standard SD)
Panasonic: 1) SD and 2) miniSD
Samsung: 1) MemorySTINK 2) standard SD, 3) microSD and 4) MMCmicro (they are the ones who invented it and are reported to use them on their newer products, not only phones; haven't seen them yet in actual commercial product)

Now imagine the mess this represents for some software developers or integrators. For example you can find GPS bundles that offer a GPS unit and a memory card. Most PDAs use SD, most Smartphones have miniSD these days, but other use microSD as well.

See: ViaMichelin GPS offering (http://shop.viamichelin.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10051&storeId=10001&productId=10048&langId=-1&parent_category_rn=10008&categoryId=10008)


On this reputed French site -PPCreviews.net- there's a current poll running. They ask if users think the memory card slot is important in the user's buying decision. (the original question: "Le format du slot d'extension influe-t-il sur votre choix de PDA?")

Today's results show 85% of people DO think it IS highly important.
50% say YES, to use the same card[s] on different devices ("Oui, pour utiliser la même carte sur différents appareils")
plus another 34.4% say Absolutely ! Buying another different card every time is too expensive ("Absolument ! Racheter une carte différente à chaque fois ça revient cher")

http://www.ppcreviews.net/component/option,com_poll/task,results/id,2/
Yet some other reasons I'm right thinking these guys are making stupid moves regardless their "intelligence"/education level/smartness/engineering degree/whatchamacallit.

This is NO theory or supposed reason, these are plain, cold, hard facts.

One more: ONLY SD provides I/O features the many sub-standards lack.

Concerning your weak argument that lots of "smart" engineers are working on it, and to take one of my example further: we all would agree that there probably are hundreds of thousands if not millions of very smart and higher educated doctors, engineers, mathematicians, lawyers, even physicians who smoke and/or overeat. They all know how serious consequences these and other bad health habits leads to (as I've said every other smoker (even passive smokers) dies of cancer).

For those of you who have seen the movie "Dying Young" with Julia Roberts (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101787/), you can barely start to imagine how extremely painful cancer and its treatments can be.

Yet these highly "smart" people -as much as the less smart kind- knowingly face themselves with such horrible pains.

For the others they face impotence, reduced libido, short breath and all the other serious side effects we all know of.

And that's just for smoking, let alone overeating that can lead in its worst cases to diabetes, blindness, amputations, heart attacks, etc.

So why do they do this willingly even tho they're much smarter?

The very same simplest of reasons: they don't vividly think, imagine and ponder about all the consequences they will face.

[ghostppc]

Yeah, you'd think they'd just give it a rest at SD. I think most people are satisfied with the SD card being the standard memory size which is why all the adapters floating around seem to support it. But it all comes back to the reasoning of "W?BIC!" PC cards used to be the standard memory card. Someone wants it - someone will use it, even though having to choose between the growing number of storage formats, aggravates the end consumer. But at the same time, someone's got to try it first. And every company wants to get to the point of being the one to have the smallest card possible. So when one day we have computers the size of a postage stamp, (are that all too frightening science fiction computer that will someday be implanted somewhere in the body :oops: ) the memory will have to be even smaller. The manufacturers are making sure to confuse the he!! out of us to get their money's worth! :P But they figure when they hit a new barrier, why not throw it out there for someone to utilize/buy.......they gotta keep the lights on too :idea:

[jlp]

Have you noticed how Sandisk lost 50%!!! revenues in early 2007:

"first quarter non-GAAP net income was $45 million, or $0.19 per share, compared to first quarter 2006 non-GAAP net income of $90 million, or $0.44 per share." Emphasis added; link is here, second paragraph (http://www.forbes.com/businesswire/feeds/businesswire/2007/04/26/businesswire20070426006277r1.html)

Of course if they sell tiny cards that have much less(*) capacity, in a market flooded (so far there are 55 of them, YES FIFTY-FIVE) with non standard, sub-standard and of course incompatible formats, people will spend much less for all these reasons.

This is the Nth proof that I'm right here, and rest assured I'm not the only one to believe this: as you can see with these aweful figures, tens of millions of consumers around the world have voted with their wallet!!!

Jelpy

*=As of this writing microSD tops at 2GB while you could find since last summer!! standard SD cards offered with 8 GB, that's a 400% capacity increase, even 800% increase if you take last summer's capacity with microSD cards that topped 1GB, IF you could find one.