Matsushita Dropping SD Card Prices

In an attempt to make SD cards more competitive with Sony's Memory Sticks, Matsushita Electric has promised to cut the price of a 64 MB SD card from $180 to $95 this month. An equivalent MemStick is $120. The company is also committed to cutting the costs of all current SD cards by 90% by 2005, though in four years an 8 MB card may seem as pointless as a 20 MB hard drive in a PC does today.

Fumio Ohtsubo, Matsushita's managing director, admitted that SD Card shipments have been dwarfed by Memory Stick's. So far, his company has made only 250 thousand units while over 10 million MemSticks have been sold. Still, he predicted that 160 million SD cards would have been sold by 2006, capturing 50% of the market.

Currently, Matsushita is working to increase the number of companies that make devices with SD card slots.

SD card slots appear in Palm's m500 series and the HandEra 330.

Related Articles:

On the Web: Thanks to Mike Cane for the tip. -Ed

Article Comments

 (35 comments)

The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. PalmInfocenter is not responsible for them in any way.
Please Login or register here to add your comments.

Comments Closed Comments Closed
This article is no longer accepting new comments.

Down

What about your memory sticks now?

I.M. Anonymous @ 6/8/2001 12:21:46 PM #
nt

RE: What about your memory sticks now?
CarlJ @ 6/8/2001 12:50:07 PM #
Big deal -- pricewatch has 64mb Memory Sticks listed for as low as $75 today, and one can expect that the Memory Stick prices will drop "in retaliation". And a bit of a memory price war can only be a good thing for us :-) Personally, I'm craving a nice cheap 128mb Memory Stick for my 710C. (BTW, re the title, are you that insecure about your m505 purchase, or are you just a troll?)

RE: Flamebait
I.M. Anonymous @ 6/8/2001 12:58:10 PM #
> are you that insecure about your m505 purchase, or are you just a troll?

He's a troll. Nothing he posts is ever longer than a short sentence and they are all personal attacks, insults, or flamebait. This one here is an example of flamebait. He only posted it to start an argument between Sony and Palm users. I think that topic has been beaten into the ground lately so please don't continue it.

RE: What about your memory sticks now?
I.M. Anonymous @ 6/8/2001 2:38:04 PM #
The sooner Sony drop the ridiculous memory stick the better. The last thing we need is another non-standard I/O format. It would have been better for all concerned if Sony stopped thinking about the money they could make on proprietary expansion and made SD devices. At least Palm, whatever their other faults, weren't so selfish as to introduce another new memory format.

Industry Needs to Standardize!!!
I.M. Anonymous @ 6/8/2001 5:07:18 PM #
Geez. With all this flaming about m505 vs. Clie, you'd think we'd have better things to argue about.
Palm and Sony have their pros and cons. Maybe when the next wave of palm devices come out, they will learn from each others successes and failures and come up with an undeniably superior product (I'm thinking a m505 formfactor with a nice, organic LCD screen, a jog dial, 320 * 320 resolution, 16 bit...)

On the topic of memory expansion, I think it was a very bad idea for sony to introduce its memory stick format. It should have used a well established industry standard like palm did with its m505.

RE: What about your memory sticks now?
I.M. Anonymous @ 6/8/2001 9:15:57 PM #
I really think that the "FlameBait" comment is not totally out of line. I am beginning to think that there is truely an effort to sabotage anything that is labelled Palm or Palm Powered online. These WinCE folks are not lonely; they want the road for Palm to be as treacherous as possible. When I do post something in a Palm site, I get visited by a vius. I don't want to disclose the Yahoo Palm site, but it happens to others as well. " A word to the wise is sufficient".

CompUSA has them for $99 already...

I.M. Anonymous @ 6/8/2001 12:22:07 PM #
I was at a CompUSA (L.A.) on Monday and they had Lexar 64MB, price tag ~$180. I asked the sales guy for the price and he said he needs to check if it is still the same... He said "Does $99 put a smile on your face?". Guess what, I got one ;-).
Lesson learned: Always ask for the price in the system, not for the one on the tag.

Have a good one,

Chriz.



Got that beat.

I.M. Anonymous @ 6/8/2001 12:29:18 PM #

Ecost.com has Sandisk 64MB SD Cards for $64.00 .

Sticks and SD

I.M. Anonymous @ 6/8/2001 1:11:33 PM #
It had to come to this eventually - it was consumer-unfriendly
policy by part of Sony (and Matsushita) to release their
own flashmemory format, when there are already 3 existing
formats (Compactflash, Smartmedia and MMC).
Guess Sony thinks that they're big enough to get away with it,
let's hope that they'll be forced to reduce prices (right now
memory sticks are about twice as expensive as the comparable
Compactflahs or Smartmedia card)



RE: Sticks and SD
I.M. Anonymous @ 6/8/2001 2:48:32 PM #
CF and SmartMedia are too big to make it to the next round. SD or Memory stick will be the future.

RE: Sticks and SD
atrizzah @ 6/8/2001 5:38:34 PM #
SD isn't matsushita's format. It's a standard developed by a handful of companies. That's why it took so long to standardize SDIO. Besides, SD isn't new, it's an improvement of the MMC standard, so if you by a Palm with an SD slot, you can still use MMC cards with them. The reason they made SD cards is so they can have things like GamePak's and have them to be uncopyable.

Peace Out
Alan
RE: Sticks and SD
I.M. Anonymous @ 6/8/2001 7:01:22 PM #
yes, but the games card is mmc :)


For a m505 group for all the supporters

I.M. Anonymous @ 6/8/2001 3:25:30 PM #
Go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/m505

Anybody who flames this message has no life.

RE: For a m505 group for all the supporters
I.M. Anonymous @ 6/8/2001 3:41:31 PM #
HOW DARE YOU POST THAT REDICULOUS STUFF HERE!!! we don't care about your stupid m505 with it's dead end "SD" cards. forget this stuff, man my sony has 320x320 res and 16-bit color! and you m505 is a BRICK!!! (how can you call my clie a brick when it's skinier, dang is your handheld fat!!!) WHY ARE YOU WASTING YOUR TIME WITH THIS CRAP!?!?!

I'm only playin', I love my m505! But isn't it amazing how one post can be so opinionated with little facts? I know it's all off topic, but it certainly makes a good point: we are all too caught up in these handheld wars!

Later all,
*'Lise M.*

SD Format

I.M. Anonymous @ 6/8/2001 3:32:21 PM #
I know that my M50x uses the industry standard SD and MMC memory modules for that little slot in the back but why can i find SD cards which appear bigger? And some of the digital cameras take SD cards but all of them seem to be the larger format.

so, my question. Are their two different formats to this "standard". or is the standard just the way information is stored and not the physical size?

?

RE: SD Format
I.M. Anonymous @ 6/8/2001 4:07:05 PM #
From what I've read, the SD cards are a little thicker, but the same width and length.

RE: SD Format
I.M. Anonymous @ 6/8/2001 4:08:14 PM #
Huh? There are bigger ones? I wasn't aware of this. At first, when the whole SD/MMC card hype came out, I thought that maybe the MMC's were another name for Smart Media, but I was wrong.

RE: SD Format
Ed @ 6/8/2001 4:17:45 PM #
> why can i find SD cards which appear bigger?

Are you confusing SD with Smart Media? Smart media cards are larger but thinner than SD cards and are a rival, unrelated, memory card format.

---
News Editor
Palm Infocenter

MMC is better
I.M. Anonymous @ 6/8/2001 4:53:59 PM #
In my local group of 505 users we have the MMC and the SD cards. The only difference to an m505 appears to be that copyrighted files can be moved to the card. They cannot on the MMC. (unless you use filez, Z'Cat, or BeamCrack to remove the copy protect-then they move just fine). Reading them (SD)is a problem. My MMC reader costs $29 and will move 32MB in about 60 secs. My 3.5" FlashPath device is slow, but will work on any computer. Neither will work with an SD, and I haveen't yet seen any SD readers or FlashPaths available. Today, at least, MMC appears to be the better of the two.
Chromosome.

RE: SD Format
I.M. Anonymous @ 6/9/2001 10:15:16 AM #
I have a SD reader..Panasonic BN-SDCAAE, came with my MP3 player.

A lot of post here shows that people here don't understand the concept of I/O cards (SD, Memory Stick, CF) vs Memory omly cards (SmartMedia, MMC, CF).

In fact, there is already on the market CF cards that can do stuff that the other ones will take 2 years to achieve... Modem, Bluetooth (yes, it exists), GPS, GSM phone, Real hard drive, etc... All the manufaacturers were drived by M$ involvment in CF.

Once we stated that CF is too bulky, what does M$ is gonna do ?? Go with SD, Memory Stick, or they're gonna have their own ???

Solo



Memory Stick Vs Magic Gate Vs SD Cards

I.M. Anonymous @ 6/8/2001 5:55:04 PM #
Price aside, what are their respective pros and cons? Esp with regards to the Magic Gate Vs Memory Stick...

Is the Magic Gate an underhand way to prevent you from using MP3's? Isn't that what it's supposed to do. Protect copyright in some way? Sony are bundling the 64Mb Magic Gate with the Clie? Why? They are not offering the same thing with the memory stick.

Thanks for your help everyone.

RE: Memory Stick Vs Magic Gate Vs SD Cards
CarlJ @ 6/8/2001 8:31:54 PM #
Price aside, what are their respective pros and cons? Esp with regards to the Magic Gate Vs Memory Stick...

Given the current state of things, MagicGate is to MemoryStick roughly what SD is to MMC.

SD (Secure Digital) is an extension to MMC (MultiMediaCard) that adds "digital rights management" (memory, encryption, and smarts that attempt to limit one to moving, rather than copying, files), higher speed (but not yet), and support for non-memory IO devices (but not yet). SD and MMC cards are generally clearly labelled either SD or MMC, and SD cards are a bit thicker.

MagicGate is an extension to MemoryStick (rather than a superceding format) that adds "digital rights management". The MemoryStick (aka MS) format already has support for IO devices (I think), though none are available yet. MagicGate MemorySticks are labelled as such and are white, while "plain" MemorySticks are a color variously described as blue or purple. They appear to be precisely the same size. (Sony has also shown around something called "MemoryStick Duo", which is smaller than an SD card, comes with a MemoryStick adapter for use in current devices, and presumably would allow even smaller devices in the future.)

I would have much preferred to see Sony put an SD slot in the Clie instead of the MS slot, but it just wasn't gonna happen -- people who are just becoming aware of the Clie with the release of the N710C are likely thinking "why did Sony do that when there's already a standard with SD?", but the earlier mono Clie had MS before SD existed, and Sony's been busy using MS in their entire line of digital cameras, walkmans, laptops, etc., for, what, a couple years now?

Is the MagicGate an underhand way to prevent you from using MP3's? Isn't that what it's supposed to do. Protect copyright in some way?

The technical point of the MagicGate extension, yes, is copyright protection. It doesn't do that itself, it just provides the framework that software can use to keep one from copying things around. The AudioPlayer app that Sony provides with the Clie can play MP3-format music files (with no protection or hinderance) off of either plain or MagicGate Memory Sticks, and it can also play their ATRAC3 format music files off of (only) the MagicGate Memory Sticks.

Using their ATRAC3 format involves some hassle of "checking out" files to the Clie, and then "checking in" the files later (apparently even with music you've ripped from your own CDs, though I haven't bothered to try), to ensure that you don't accidentally give out the file to that guy with the eye patch, parrot, and wooden leg.

I see only two possible reasons why anyone would use ATRAC3: 1) supposedly it encodes somewhat smaller files for a given sound quality, and 2) it may give big record labels enough warm fuzzy feelings that they'll be willing to release "special" things, e.g. an unreleased track from a major artist given away as a promo, but you have to download it from their website, rather than grabbing it off Napster.

Personally, I haven't touched the ATRAC3 stuff, and I don't intend to; my Clie plays MP3's off plain Memory Sticks just fine, including using Sony-supplied software (RealJukebox) to rip MP3s from my CD collection, and that's good enough for me.

Note that the N700C (the Japanese version of the N710C) originally came with only ATRAC3 support, and at least some of Sony's MemoryStick-based walkmans only support ATRAC3 (with PC software supplied to convert your MP3's into ATRAC3 format). I think they made a fairly wise and pragmatic choice in adding built-in MP3 support for the US market.

Sony are bundling the 64Mb Magic Gate with the Clie?

Sony is packaging an 8mb "plain" MemoryStick in with the Clie, so you have something to play with when you open the box (Palm doesn't give you any SD/MMC card -- not picking on Palm, just an observation).

Are you talking about some some value-added bundle on their website or some such? If there's a way to get a 64mb MagicGate MS for free to go along with my new Clie, I'd love to hear about it :-)

RE: Memory Stick Vs Magic Gate Vs SD Cards
I.M. Anonymous @ 6/8/2001 10:09:05 PM #
Excellent overview.... Thanks!!

This is the kind of stuff that I come to this site seeking. I posted a question on another site a week or so ago asking for any practical difference between the SD format and the MMC format on the current palm 5xx devices as sold. No one really addressed that as the thread took a different turn talking about where to find readers, etc. It seems to me that MMC is the format of choice for now.... A bit less expensive, more receptive to moving files about, better availability of readers.

Additional questions:
Do the MMC cards fit securely in the m5xx slots?
What, exactly, are readers and what are they for? Will I want one if I am only transfering files such as eBooks, databases, and applications to the card?

Thanks for the info...

Jim

RE: Memory Stick Vs Magic Gate Vs SD Cards
porcupine @ 6/8/2001 10:50:48 PM #
Try the following address for the difference between SD and MMC

http://davespda.netfirms.com/hardware/expansion/cfmmcsd.htm


RE: Memory Stick Vs Magic Gate Vs SD Cards
I.M. Anonymous @ 6/9/2001 4:43:17 AM #
Readers are a way to transfer information to & from the card to your PC. Without one, it is a little involved on the Palm Desktop--I don't even do it since a reader is much faster and can place your programs into ant file on the card that you desire. You can buy the Sandisk reader from their site for $36 including shipping. Stick it into a USB port and install the driver from the CD that comes with it. Put your little MMC card into the reader (which looks like your mouse). Open your computer icon on the desk top and tap on the MMC drive icon (it shows up as a removable disk). When you open it you will see a file called Palm. drag it to desktop and your entire card will be copied to that new desktop folder very quickly. You now have a mirror image of your card. Very easy ;)
Chromosome

RE: Memory Stick Vs Magic Gate Vs SD Cards
counsel4pay @ 6/9/2001 11:28:43 AM #
Thanks for the info, but, can one card reader work with ALL cards: SD, MMC, and CF? I went to Sandisk's site and could not see a clear answer. I am looking for a single reader which is reliable and can handle all kinds of cards.

RE: Memory Stick Vs Magic Gate Vs SD Cards
I.M. Anonymous @ 6/9/2001 12:07:12 PM #
At some point an article in this site mentioned that a given manufacturer was developing a reader that will read a CF, MMC, SD and a Memory Stick all in one device. Can someone revise this, more information, I've been trying to investigate with no result.



RE: Memory Stick Vs Magic Gate Vs SD Cards
EGarrido @ 6/10/2001 12:22:09 AM #
<>

Maybe. In my experience handling a few different m5xx's, I found that some hold them better than others. The one I purchased could hold one very nicely at the beginning, but then decided not to hold any cards at all, and they would just pop out at me.

Eric Garrido

RE: Memory Stick Vs Magic Gate Vs SD Cards
EGarrido @ 6/10/2001 12:24:53 AM #
Damn. I forgot these boards do html tags. "Do the MMC cards fit securely in the m5xx slots?" is supposed to go in the chevrons, as a quote.

Eric Garrido
RE: Memory Stick Vs Magic Gate Vs SD Cards
I.M. Anonymous @ 6/10/2001 5:30:47 PM #
> The one I purchased could hold one very nicely at the beginning,
> but then decided not to hold any cards at all, and they would just pop out at me.

I haven't had any problems with my m505 SD slot. Eric, are removing the cards correctly? You need to push them in so they will pop out and can be safely removed. Just pulling them out breaks the m505.

-Rob Zombie

[ No Subject ]

I.M. Anonymous @ 6/10/2001 12:12:01 AM #
OK here we go again, UHS vs. Betamax all over again...

Gimmee a break Sony

I.M. Anonymous @ 6/10/2001 5:00:05 PM #
Betamax, minidisk, now memstick? Always trying for that monopoly aren't you Sony. I'm not falling for it-I don't care how many "sticks" they've sold, it'll go the way of the trusty Betamax. Wait. You'll see.

10 million MemSticks ??

I.M. Anonymous @ 6/11/2001 5:24:57 AM #
10 million MemStick Device is not the same as 10 million MemSticks.


WIN2000 DRIVER FOR PANASONIC BN-SCAAE SD CARD READER

I.M. Anonymous @ 12/15/2001 3:35:56 PM #
I have a Panasonic digital camera that came with a BN-SCAAE SD Card Reader, but it is not Windows 2000 compatible. I urgently need a Windows 2000 driver for the SD Card Reader.

Can someone help me please.

Thanks.

Pieter Kriel
omnicom@mweb.oo.za
Tel. +27 83 232 9488
South Africa

RE: WIN2000 DRIVER FOR PANASONIC BN-SCAAE SD CARD READER
I.M. Anonymous @ 12/15/2001 4:04:31 PM #
go to www.panasonic.com/sd

There are some drivers there that should help you.

Solo

Top

Account

Register Register | Login Log in
user:
pass: