Is It the End of the Road for Memory Stick? Hope So!

In the great scheme of this, this is minor CES news indeed, but I kinda like it: Sony is releasing a line of SD and MicroSD memory cards. If it were any other company, I wouldn't be writing this post, but we're talking Sony-the company behind the venerable, eternally annoying, rather pricey, confusingly named, incompatible-with-the-rest-of-the-world Memory Stick format.

Sony, of course, would argue that Memory Stick is an argument in favor of buying its products. I've always found it a reason to decide against buying them-even though many of the products that take Memory Sticks, such as scads of Sony's cameras, have been otherwise nifty. (I do admit to having a couple of them around somewhere, though-the one time I willingly used them was when I owned a Sony Clie PDA eons ago.)

Sony's press release about the new SD cards stresses that Memory Stick is still a fabulous format and owners of Sony products should be grateful they have it. And I suspect that nobody within Sony even wants to deal with the possibility that its entry into SD is a first step towards winding down Memory Stick. I'd love to think that it might be, though. Anyone out there want to make the case for keeping the format, other than placating long-time Sony customers who have lots of cards stuffed in desk drawers?

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This story, "Is It the End of the Road for Memory Stick? Hope So!" was originally published by Technologizer.