Digitimes has pubilished an interesting article today about how NAND flash memory, which is traditionally used in mobile handsets and music players is going to see a surge in popularity due to tablets and the iPad. Actually, according to their industry sources NAND flash memory “will likely be ignited by demand from tablet computing devices and low-capacity solid-state drives (SSD) designed for low-cost netbooks and dual-drive desktop PCs”. We hope that this article doesn’t serve to further confuse Mr. Jobs who seems to confuse the iPad and the netbook as direct competitors even though their usage scenario are very different. But where this functionally crippled device is going to champion the industry forward is price for NAND flash memory and affordable SSDs.
Whether or not the iPad is going to be a success remains to be seen, but what we can be sure of is that it is going to sell a lot of units even if the device is a bomb. That’s the only that that Apple Fan boys can be relied upon to do is buy devices!!
The sources have noted that there is potential for Apple’s upcoming iPad to buoy the NAND flash market in 2010. Launch of iPad-like devices is also to help boost demand for NAND flash in 2010, and further stabilize the chip’s price trend.
SSD promoters have been coming to market over the past 6 months with ideas of the “affordable SSD”, Intel, Active Media OCZ, & Runcore are all strong promoters of this trend. The iPad entry into the market is causing an anticipated surge of lower capacity SSD which is going to stabilize the price. SSDs have not enjoyed industry wide adoption because of their prohibitively high cost, they have however, been increasing capacity so the value or bang for your buck is improving.
But with cheap low capacity drives becoming reasonable in price the iPad might just make SSDs mainstream in the desktop PC world as well. We might start seeing them pop up in as desktop boot drives and not just in a few higher quality products. And this obviously would rock the netbook market as our little buddies become zippy multitasking machines when they sport an SSD.
So, the iPad, doing something positive for the netbook market!! It does warm my heart to write an article that isn’t overly critical of the iPad, but hey! Atleast I’m admitting my angle and not writing articles from the stance of a fan boy masquerading as someone asking critical questions! T-Minus 16 days to see if I’m wrong about the iPad!
Source Digitimes
