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SanDisk Head To Jobs: Be Afraid

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on December 19, 2007

SanDisk Chairman and CEO Eli Harari thinks Steve Jobs should be afraid, and he’s saying so publicly in an interview with the Israeli business publication Globes Online. The story says SanDisk is setting its sights on “the iPod Empire of Steve Jobs.” Calling Jobs a “a man of vision, a genius,” he then goes on to say Jobs isn’t “nice.”

SanDisk, you’ll recall is the flash memory chip vendor who also sells the Sansa line of MP3 players. Notably, SanDisk doesn’t supply Apple with flash memory for the iPod family, despite the fact that Apple consumes more of the world’s supply of NAND type flash than any other company on the planet (unless you count SanDisk, which consumes its own capacity, but I digress).

Anyhow, Harari continues by saying he thinks that Jobs should be afraid, not just of SanDisk, he argues, but because there are other companies in the world who are capable of innovation.

Credit where its due: SanDisk produces the second most popular media player product behind the iPod, and is able to do so because it has a cost advantage on flash memory that other companies don’t. Apple can tie up one-fifth of the world’s flash memory capacity with its deep pockets and virtual guarantee of high-volume orders. Anyone else wanting to build a flash-based music player has to stand in line behind Apple before they get their allotments. SanDisk builds adequate products, but doesn’t have the marketing oomph that Apple does, nor the design magic.

SanDisk has however launched an interested offensive on the video front with its TakeTV hardware product and its Fanfare TV download service, which I first reported on Oct 22. Fanfare is notable for the partnerships its cutting with CBS and Apple irritant NBC Universal.

For Harari to say Apple should be “afraid” is overstating it a little, but that’s what CEOs do. So far SanDisk’s products are interesting, but don’t really constitute a threat to Apple so far as I can tell. I’ve tried TakeTV and Fanfare, but I don’t know anyone else who has. I don’t see many Sansas on the subway. I don’t have to go very far on the streets of Manhattan to find an iPod or iPhone owner.

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Reader Comments

Paul

December 19, 2007 05:02 PM

Does that mean that San Disk is afraid of Apple? Just because other companies can innovate and its good they can, no need to be afraid.

Just do your best and let the market decide.

Melangell

December 19, 2007 06:25 PM

Uhhhhh.... Yeah.

Joe S.

December 19, 2007 10:52 PM

It's difficult to load music on an iPod? He must be joking...right? If not I don't think Apple has anything to worry about.

Michael

December 20, 2007 01:43 AM

If he was wise, he'd have kept his mouth shut. Well, that is, if he really has something for Apple to fear. If not, the little bit of added publicity might help his sales a trivial amount.

Gary

December 20, 2007 07:02 AM

Job's would do well to heed Harari's advice, as would Harari do well to follow his own advice. As the great Andy Grove wrote: "only the paranoid survive". Of course, he wasn't referring to the mind numbing fear of true paranoia. Instead he meant the kind of fear that drove you deep into the data, and the kind of fear that let you balance that knowledge with a healthy response to your gut. I suspect that Jobs is no stranger to these processes, but it was kind of Harari to offer the advice, however uninvited it was.

F. J. Taylor

December 20, 2007 08:18 AM

ROFL!! Sansas are no more a "threat" to iPod than Zune, or any of the other touted "iPod killers" that have flopped, or at best, are also-rans (like Sansa). However, if Mr. Harari can market whatever mind-altering substance he is obviously smoking, he will make a fortune.

JohnJ

December 20, 2007 11:45 AM

Steve Jobs should be afraid of content providers. They are tired of having him dictate terms and conditions, and would love to undermine Apple/iTunes.

Amazon.com/AmazonMP3 is the best legal source of music. You can buy both CDs and DRM-free MP3s there.

Aaron Cohen

December 21, 2007 06:23 PM

I own a TakeTV, and it's a truly phenomenal product. The Fanfare store is slick (better than iTunes, imo) and the device is INCREDIBLY easy to use.

Fanfare is still lacking a lot of content, but the TakeTV is compatible with just about every non-proprietary media format so you can put video you get on LimeWire, etc. on it no sweat.

I LOVE this thing.

drx1

January 7, 2008 10:20 AM

It would be nice to see more competition in the MP3 player space ... but for now the iPod rules. Content providers seem stuck in the 80s or worse. I'm not sure Amazon is really the place to get digital music or any kind of media.

Unlike with computers, most people want their music players and video players to work - reliably with a minimum of fuss.

One issue with all this 'convergence' is that tech companies are used to making things complicated. Complicated is fine for industry professionals making $80K + per year, but its not find when you simply want to listen to some music!

Just remember - every iPod Killer has an FM tuner in it!

So why not some HD Radio Tuners... where's the innovation?

drx1

January 8, 2008 12:30 PM

It would be nice to see more competition in the MP3 player space ... but for now the iPod rules. Content providers seem stuck in the 80s or worse. I'm not sure Amazon is really the place to get digital music or any kind of media.

Unlike with computers, most people want their music players and video players to work - reliably with a minimum of fuss.

One issue with all this 'convergence' is that tech companies are used to making things complicated. Complicated is fine for industry professionals making $80K + per year, but its not find when you simply want to listen to some music!

Just remember - every iPod Killer has an FM tuner in it!

So why not some HD Radio Tuners... where's the innovation?

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A blog on the daily doings of Apple and the many companies in its orbit, with insight and analysis by two longtime Apple-watchers BusinessWeek Senior Writer Peter Burrows and BusinessWeek.com Senior Technology Writer Arik Hesseldahl.

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