It can probably be safe to say that the iPod currently has a strangle hold on the MP3 player industry. The most popular MP3 player in the market, other companies have been trying to figure out how they would be able to compete with Apple’s iPod. sanDisk may have just found the solution. SanDisk is now offering a new special through their partnership with several Record Labels. Check out this article from Mary Jane Irwin from Forbes.com has she gives more details about the offer and how it should affect the MP3 player industry.
Burlingame, Calif. - SanDisk is continuing its flash war against established media. First it was film, then floppy disks and hard drives–now it is going after compact discs.
The Milipitas, Calif.-based company on Wednesday launched SlotMusic, an initiative aimed at supplanting compact discs with flash memory cards. SanDisk has partnered wth EMI Music, Sony BMG, Universal Music and Warner Music Group to distribute albums on 1-gigabyte cards that can be used in any device, like a cellphone or MP3 player, that has a USB or microSD slot.
Each microSD card comes loaded with an album from the likes of Coldplay, Kiss, Nelly and Weezer. The cards are priced at $14.99 each and sold at major retailers like Best Buy and Walmart
It’s a smart way for SanDisk to sell more microSD cards, but it also begs the question, why? With digital storefronts like iTunes on the rise, why introduce another physical format into the ecosystem? Is it to capture all the consumers left behind by the digital revolution?
SanDisk General Manager Daniel Schreiber contends that a large percentage of digital music device owners don’t load the players themselves and often rely on others to refresh their MP3s. “You can’t enjoy them without being comfortable with a computer and a credit card,” he says.
It also takes time to load music players. When you buy an iPod, you have to take it home, charge it and then sync it with iTunes. SlotMusic allows consumers to access music as soon as they snag it off the shelf, provided they have a compatible device.
That shouldn’t be too hard. Schreiber says there are over 2 billion playback devices in the wild, including SD slot-equipped cellphones, SanDisk’s line of MP3 players and new laptops with on-board card readers. Plus, SanDisk is shipping a USB adapter with every card so consumers can plug them into computers or videogame consoles.
SlotMusic cards should even play in your Nintendo DS. If you don’t have a compatible portable device, SanDisk plans to sell a bare bones digital music player–essentially a card reader with a headphone jack–for $19.99.
SanDisk already offers up a line of inexpensive MP3 players, giving the company the No. 2 spot in North America with 10% market share.
Schreiber conceded that SlotMusic likely won’t become the dominant digital music delivery system, but it does have some significant advantages. Since each card is 1 GB in size, consumers can easily add their own content and the additional storage space allows artists like Robin Thicke to include music videos.
SanDisk is also building technology platforms that will leverage SlotMusic’s ability to sync up with servers through encrypted connections. A streaming subscription service like Rhapsody, which SanDisk has already partnered with for its line of Sansa music players, could implement a seamless offline/online connection with the cards.
Parks Associates analyst Michael Cai is skeptical that consumers, particularly young consumers, will buy albums on memory cards or that less tech savvy folks will understand SlotMusic. But, he notes, “if I’m in the market for a 1-GB SD card, I may as well get some music with it.”
