In a Flash, Hard-drive Memory Fading

Yahoo! News carries a Billboard article on how the iPod nano just might be hearkening in a new era of flash-based digital audio players and signaling the demise of hard-drive devices. Flash devices are smaller, more durable and less power hungry, but cost more per bit and offer less capacity than hard drives.

According to Jupiter Research, there will be 56 million MP3 players in the world by 2010, and more than half will be flash devices that hold 1,000 songs or less, with about 5GB.

Jupiter Research analyst David Card said, "Flash-device sales will surpass hard-drive sales. But the technology is not important. What's important is reaching a certain capacity at a certain price point at a certain size."

Card noted that "only about 20 percent of iPod users have more than 1,000 songs on their players." With size actually not mattering, manufacturers no longer need to heed the traditional drive to always increase capacity and instead could focus on smaller, cheaper players. Card said, "Apple changed its product strategy more rapidly than we thought it would."

Card opined, "If you could get a device that had enough capacity to be interesting, with good battery life and cool form factor, and sell (it) for $50, this market will explode. It's pretty easy to imagine a flash-based device in a year or two hitting those kinds of price points."

Exactly. Given the penetration rate of digital audio players is roughly 12 percent in the U.S, the market has a lot of room to grow. Until prices drop to mass market level will it really take off...