M-Systems, SanDisk To Develop USB Flash Drives
Online Staff -- EDN, September 7, 2004
M-Systems Flash Disk Pioneers Ltd. and SanDisk Corp. signed a strategic collaboration and patent cross-license agreement to jointly develop and promote the USB flash drive platform, the companies said today.
In a market that expected to grow from $572 million this year to $1.7 billion in 2007, according to Gartner, the companies believe this collaboration opens the door to a standardized USB flash drive platform upon which third party software application developers can develop consumer and enterprise applications.
Both companies will contribute to the new USB flash drive standard via their patents and other intellectual property in removable flash storage. Further, M-Systems will serve as a technology developer and driver of the USB flash drive category with SanDisk developing flash cards. Once the new standard is established, the two companies said they would license it to foster industry-wide adoption.
The collaboration with SanDisk represents an evolution of M-Systems’ Smart DiskOnKey Platform to a new and more powerful standard platform that according to the company, one that it believes will accelerate the rapid growth of USB flash drives.
“The market for USB flash drives has grown dramatically in the last 2 years," Wes Brewer, VP for consumer product marketing at SanDisk, said in a statement."With it has come a raft of innovative add-on software applications to improve functionality beyond the floppy disk replacement.
"Up to now, these software applications have been largely developed as point products requiring customization for each USB drive design," Brewer continued. "The new collaboration between M-Systems and SanDisk opens the door for much more powerful and standardized applications to be developed across a wide range of products from multiple vendors and independent third party developers."
The companies expect to introduce the first first products based upon the new standard early next year.
