Lexar Secures Kodak Brand For Flash Cards

Fremont, Calif.— Seeking to develop a larger retail footprint, flash memory manufacturer Lexar Media announced a partnership with Kodak that will see the stalwart photo brand on a line of Lexar-produced flash memory products.

Under the agreement, Lexar will manufacture and distribute a lineup of Kodak-branded Secure Digital (SD), MiniSD, Multimedia Cards (MMC) and CompactFlash cards in the fourth quarter. According to Jim Gustke, general manager, marketing, Lexar Media, the product line will expand to include Sony's Memory Stick format in the "near future."

Prices and capacities were not disclosed, but a Kodak spokesman said the cards would fall into the "mass market" range.

Lexar's Gustke described the deal as a means to give Lexar access to retail channels where "the Kodak brand is very powerful," such as mass merchants, food and drug stores. In addition to Kodak, Lexar will use its own network of distributors to sell the Kodak cards, Gustke said.

Both companies will be responsible for product marketing.

For its part, Kodak viewed the partnership as a means of expanding its well-publicized offensive on new or growing digital markets, the spokesman said. The flash memory market is a "rapidly growing market, and it's adjacent to what we do, which is sell digital cameras," he said.

The spokesman added that Kodak tapped Lexar because of a strong intellectual property portfolio.