The future of Memory Stick seems a little less certain

Sony's continued support of memory stick, it's removable flash memory card, used in conjunction with Sony portable devices, such as its market leading digital video cameras, is considered by some to be a case of backing the wrong horse. But hindsight, rather than a prior clear market view, is informing their opinions.

The fact that Sony have maintained their support for Memory Stick in the face of growing popularity of the competing SD card is understandable to some extent. They have made a huge investment in the format, and it has allowed them to dominate the portable domestic devices market, certainly in the initial stages of the emerging digital camcorder sector, where they established a significant share.

If we look at the legacy of Sony it becomes clearer as to why they have proceeded in this way. There appear to be two key reasons prompting their position, the primary one being that they have led the way in the portable devices markets where many products are concerned. Their dominance of the portable music player market led consumers to adopt Sony branding as a generic term in reference to all portable music playing devices, regardless of who manufactured it. They all became known as walkmans, even though this was the name for the Sony portable cassette player, which was followed by the Sony Walkman CD player. This did not, however, translate where the emergence of the portable mini disc player is concerned. Although Sony produced a strong product in this sector, it was Sharp that was the initial market leader with Sony trailing behind. Sony seemed to have missed a trick in failing to spearhead this market development, but the popularity of the mini disc format was short-lived, something they may have anticipated, and may have been influential in their decision making.

To really understand Sony's position it is important to view it's entire manufacturing base as well as it's retailing presence. A look at the prominence of the Sony Viao laptop offers many clues as to why Sony, as a company, behaves in the way that it does. This product is positioned in a very interesting place within the vast and fiercely competitive laptop marketplace. It sits somewhere between bog-standard laptops that use a PC platform, and the Apple iBook, and is preferred by creative users who are reticent to make the quantum shift required to converting to the differing Apple operating software. It would then follow that Sony would adopt a marketing philosophy that does not differ too greatly from that of Apple, which is certainly true where individuated high street stores are concerned.

It seems that, like Apple, Sony have been attempting market domination by engineering a monopolistic sub sector within the portable devices market, but that they have failed to differentiate themselves sufficiently from the immediate competition. With other producers closing the gap, that was never wide enough to begin with, Sony have had to capitulate, where Apple have not.

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The SD memory card is indomitable amongst removable compact flash drives.