FujiFilm, Olympus Propose New Memory Card
XD Picture Card, poised to compete with existing formats, could lead to smaller digital devices.
Martyn Williams, IDG News Service
Two of the companies behind the SmartMedia card format, Fuji Photo Film and Olympus Optical, have announced plans to move away from that card, choosing to develop a new format of their own. The move means that the pair will not line up behind an emerging format from SmartMedia co-developer Toshiba called Secure Digital.
The announcement of another memory card format is likely to bring moans from users of digital still cameras and other portable digital equipment, who already have to deal with six formats, the latest being Sony's MemoryStick Duo launched earlier this month.
The two chose to develop the new format, named XD, for Extreme Digital, Picture Card, for two main reasons, says Yoshiaki Yamada, a spokesperson for Olympus. The new card will be physically smaller, allowing manufacturers to design smaller digital cameras than are available today, he says, and will also help satisfy consumer demands for higher capacity memory cards.
Comparing the Cards
In a shoulder-to-shoulder comparison with its competition, the XD Picture Card comes closest to the MemoryStick Duo in terms of size. The Sony card, which is just over half the size of the original MemoryStick, is about half a centimeter longer than the new XD format and otherwise has similar dimensions, which means users will likely see little difference between them.
In terms of capacity, it is too early to tell how the XD Picture Card measures up because commercial products are not expected to be available until the third quarter of this year. Olympus says it plans to launch the format with 16MB, 32MB, 64MB, and 128MB cards, and follow with a 256MB card in December. The only other capacity firmly on the roadmap is a 512MB card due next year, although Yamada says the card specification scales up to 8GB.
Those plans mean the card will be playing catch-up to CompactFlash, which is available in capacities of up to 1GB, and SD, which is available with up to 512MB capacity. Most other memory card formats are presently stuck at around the 128MB mark.
The cards will be officially launched alongside new digital still cameras from Fuji Photo and Olympus Optical that are due in the coming months, the companies say. In addition to the cards, the two plan to put on sale PC Card and Compact Flash adapters that will allow XD Picture Cards to be used in devices supporting those formats.
Poised for Success?
The leading positions held by the two companies in the digital still camera market might be enough to drive the card's success, despite fierce competition, says Michito Kimura, an analyst at IDC Japan.
"The success of memory cards is driven by the digital still camera market so [XD] has room to grow," he says. "Toshiba and Panasonic are pushing SD cards but it has not been as successful as they expected. Last year Sony's MemoryStick had very good growth, and the reason is very simple: Sony's digital camera had very good sales. Toshiba and Panasonic are not in a good position in the digital still camera market."
"This combination of Fuji and Olympus, with top market shares, meansa?|[that] in the next few years the market for this card is likely to be big," he says. However, the analyst adds, as third-generation cellular services become popular and manufacturers build memory card slots into 3G handsets, those handsets are likely to start taking over as the driving force in the memory card market.
Making Memories
In choosing the XD Picture Card, the two companies are not totally moving away from Toshiba, which together with Sega and Tokyo Electron formed the five-member consortium that first launched and promoted SmartMedia (then called Solid State Floppy Disc Card, or SSFDC). Toshiba will manufacture the XD Picture Card, but would not comment on whether it was disappointed that the two had not chosen SD for their next generation product.
"As long as they are selling some type of flash memory card, we can do business with them," says Kenichi Sugiyama, a Toshiba spokesperson, noting that the company is still making money by supplying flash memory chips for XD Picture Card.
The announcement does, however, mean another nail in the coffin of SmartMedia, which became the first mass-market memory card format when it debuted in 1995, shortly before the CompactFlash format was launched. Since Toshiba stopped using the format in favor of SD, FujiFilm and Olympus have been two of the largest manufacturers of products based on the card.
