Comments on: Samsung to Manufacture Memory Sticks

Samsung Electronics and Sony Corporation today announced that Samsung is now licensed by Sony to manufacture and sell Memory Stick media. Samsung will begin production and sales of Memory Stick media in the third quarter of 2003.

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I guess the significance of this is...

snugglefart @ 8/6/2003 11:47:17 AM #

that the Koreans want to get into the action on an inferior mode of memory management, right?

I have, and love, a TG-50. I've updated my keyboard with stickykeys, and have a clear cover now. It works great! I hate being limited to memory sticks! I have a 512meg CF that I use for passing files between pcs, and find it unbelievably frustrating that this memory stick forces me to hook up via usb to get things done.

I guess the only good point here is that the Koreans will help reduce costs on MSs, but we'll still have to settle for memory that is one generation behind everyone else....

RE: I guess the significance of this is...

homiei @ 8/6/2003 12:34:39 PM #

More manufacturer does not neccessary mean lower the price, it depends how much does SONY want to charge its licensee. Therefore SONY gets paid for every MS sold.

dammit, dammit, dammit

craigf @ 8/6/2003 12:15:51 PM #

I love Samsung's products but I despise Memory Stick. Why couldn't they just play nice with the rest of the world and standardize on Secure Digital??! *fume*

RE: dammit, dammit, dammit

helf @ 8/6/2003 12:40:53 PM #

argh.. for real >:(

We are going to get flamed by sony users soon ;)

so much love for memory sticks

markgm @ 8/6/2003 12:54:38 PM #

I guess it's a small flame from a Sony user. I don't think of SD as being too universal either. I guess part of that is because they were one of the last formats to come out with a larger capacity back in the day when I had an SD mp3 player. The only thing I hate more than memory sticks though is the xD format. I'm a fan of compact flash...fast, cheap, and more universal. I can imagine that SD would be/is great, I just don't have any devices anymore that require it. Maybe the future will be SD for smaller devices and CF for larger ones. Until then, I can live with MS and CF in my devices.

RE: dammit, dammit, dammit

ganoe @ 8/6/2003 1:02:08 PM #

Yeah, this is a real bummer. Samsung has a wide variety of good electronics products, and I hate to think they might put Memory Stick instead of SD or CF in them. I guess if they don't want my business, that's their decision.

RE: dammit, dammit, dammit

helf @ 8/6/2003 1:04:36 PM #

I love CF too. I REALLY wish some other pda maker besides handera/trg and sony would put a cf slot in their palms :

RE: dammit, dammit, dammit

arielb @ 8/6/2003 1:44:10 PM #

The real problem is when content is released on one format and not the other. This could mean multi meg games that are hard to download. Or perhaps one of these things will replace CD's for audio. So if a game or album comes out on SD and not Memory stick, sony users will be left out. And vice versa!

RE: dammit, dammit, dammit

Tungsten @ 8/6/2003 9:00:41 PM #

You know, I think it's time they start banning these spineless idiots who start Memory Stick-bashing threads. They contribute nothing of importance while polluting PIC. Fuming hatred against a flash memory format? Geesh, you have bigger issues!

RE: dammit, dammit, dammit

helf @ 8/6/2003 9:49:30 PM #

Oh come on. I'm sure you whine about something sometime.. We just don't like it.

RE: dammit, dammit, dammit

Strider_mt2k @ 8/11/2003 2:02:22 PM #

As VP of the whiner's club, I insist on there being room for whining here!

Anyone else notice....

Minstrel @ 8/6/2003 9:43:27 PM #

"As of April 2003, worldwide cumulative shipments of Memory Stick media had reached 40 million units and shipments of Memory Stick compliant products had reached over 40 million units."

That means that there are more MS compliant products than actual MS's to put in them. - 'Course, that's what you'd expect with Sony putting a MS slot on absolutly everything they manufacture... heh.

Oh, and for the record, I don't like memory sticks SD is a much nicer format (more difficult to get accidental leverage on). CF's okay, but it seems a bit large/chunky for my liking.

Samsung Devices with Memory Sticks

drw @ 8/6/2003 10:03:28 PM #

Here is an interesting related PIC article talking about how future handhelds would use Memory Sticks.

http://www.palminfocenter.com/view_Story.asp?ID=2183

Sony is probably pissed Samsung opted for SD expansion in the sph-i700 ppc phone.

---
David

RE: Samsung Devices with Memory Sticks

rogerkang @ 8/7/2003 1:07:30 AM #

I think Samsung HAS been manufacturing the memory stick for quite some time, haven't they?

I visited the Samsung showroom last year in Seoul, and it seemed that they had been producing the memory stick for a while. They even had products in their showroom back then with memory stick slots....

RE: Samsung Devices with Memory Sticks

ConceptVBS @ 8/7/2003 1:38:45 AM #

Yes, all the Memory sticks that you see on the market today has Samsung memory chips in them.

The reason why Samsung is producing more Memory Sticks s is to get additional revenue and boost market share in the flash memory market. They are the #1 in this market and wants to keep a distance between the next 2 competitors. Sony on the other hand now gets more products that support thier MS platform. Think about all the products that Samsung makes having MS in them. This is a golden oppportuninty for Sony.

For those who think Samsung will abandon other memory formats: they wont. Right now they produce memory chips embedded in SD, CF, MS and Smartmedia. No matter which format the market adopts, Samsung has their hands in them. The Sony deal only expands their presence in the flash memory market.

none of the flash formats are perfect

73939133 @ 8/8/2003 9:13:05 AM #

CF has great capacity and is cheap and non-proprietary, but it's pretty big and its socket is less durable than the other formats.
SD is an unpublished format that you can implement only under NDA (making it impossible to support in open operating systems); it also has copy prevention features
MMC is like SD with none of its disadvantages, but it only ships in limited capacities (does anybody know whether that's a technical limitation?)
MemoyStick is proprietary but may, ironically, be better documented than SD and not require an NDA. It is also the only format that currently allows real-time MPEG-recording at VGA size. Physically and technically it's not too bad: small form factor, good connector, not too small for people to hold.
xD is not very much used; there is some chance that it may eventually combine the advantages of CF and SD; we'll have to see.

I guess right now, CF is probably still the best compromise. I really dislike having another format added to the mix, but xD may end up being the best successor ultimately. SD doesn't look like it's going to open up and, in many ways, is no better than MemoryStick.

RE: none of the flash formats are perfect

ganoe @ 8/8/2003 4:26:05 PM #

> MemoryStick is proprietary but may, ironically, be better
> documented than SD and not require an NDA.

As far as I know this is false. How exactly do you get specifications from Sony without being a licensee and signing some kind of confidentiality/NDA agreement?
http://www.memorystick.org/e-index.html

> It is also the only format that currently allows real-time
> MPEG-recording at VGA size.

Hmmm ... given that at least both CF and SD support faster write speeds than Memory Stick, I'd have to assume this is false as well.

Where's "MStick I/O"?!

mikecane @ 8/9/2003 11:02:16 AM #

Who needs more frigging memory?!

Where are the I/O Memory Sticks?! Like WiFi, Bluetooth (well, OK, but it's not being sold in the US!), etc?

RE: Where's

abosco @ 8/9/2003 7:49:36 PM #

Shh! Don't let Sony know we want to use our memory expansion slots for peripherals too. It's their job to offer a crippled second slot to do that. And we won't care that it has poor card support because THE SLOT RETRACTS!! I think that's Sony's new idea to everything. Don't like our slot? We'll retract it! Don't like our stylus? We'll retract it!

You see? It solves everything! Retracting is the second coming of Jesus. How can you not see that?

-Bosco