Sony, Samsung Ink Memory Stick Agreement
By Doug Olenick -- TWICE, 8/20/2001
NEW YORK— Sony and Samsung Electronics have signed a memorandum of understanding to strengthen their cooperative efforts, with an initial focus on Samsung adopting Memory Stick as its flash memory card.
One of the first steps to be taken under the agreement has the companies trading information related to Memory Stick and jointly developing Memory Stick-based products, the companies said.
As a starting point, Samsung said it will introduce Memory Stick adapters for its notebook and desktop computer lines later this year and include a Memory Stick slot in its PC products starting next year.
Samsung executives said in a written statement that the company's interest in Memory Stick is based on the format's expandability and the fact that it is backed by Sony's marketing engine.
In other Memory Stick news, Sony earlier this month slashed prices on all its Memory Stick flash memory cards, including cutting from between $5 and $90. Under the new pricing scheme, the price of an 8MB card is $24.95, down $5; the 16MB card goes to $34.95 from $49.95; the 32MB card is now $49.95, down $20; the 64MB card is $79.95, down from $119.95; and the 128MB card is $149.95, a decrease of $90. The move placed the proprietary Memory Stick format more in line with the prices of the competing CompactFlash, SD, SmartMedia and MMC flash memory cards.
