Up until now, the Sunnyvale, California-based company SanDisk has been in the shadows as primarily a flash memory manufacturer. Now it wants a piece of the digital music action, just as Apple has achieved with its iPod. Recent SanDisk developments, which indicate its musical direction, include a new line of Sansa flash players, a deal with Rhapsody, DRM-protected SD cards (up to 4GB in size), and a deal with the Rolling Stones.

Rhapsody Deal

In conjunction with its release of the Sansa m200 series MP3 players, SanDisk has announced a partnership with RealNetworks, with an $80 rebate when you sign up for six months of Rhapsody. This means for about $210 ($120 for the player, plus $90 for Rhapsody) you can get a 4GB player filled up with all you can eat for six months. The Sansa m200 line joins the ranks of the Creative Zen Micro and the Dell DJ as a recommended player by Rhapsody for its To Go subscription service. It's available in 512MB ($80), 1GB ($120), 2GB ($160), and 4GB ($200) models.

Mick Says It's Cool

Further evidence that music is the focus for SanDisk is the fact that the Rolling Stones will offer its new album A Bigger Bang on a microSD card. These TrustedFlash cards (called Gruvi) will retail for $40 and have DRM restrictions just like secure WMA music files bought from services like Napster. Pedro Vargas, SanDisk director of mobile entertainment says, "Once again the Rolling Stones have revolutionized the music industry by releasing the first album in our Gruvi music card format." Well, we'll have to check this out at MP3.com first before we can confirm that the revolution has begun. In other words, our review of the new TrustedFlash format is coming soon.

Free Your Memory

Meanwhile, the biggest development from SanDisk could be its flash memory SD cards, which are quietly (and quickly) becoming the MP3 player's biggest competitor. Every day, more and more alternative music devices with expandable memory are being used, such as cameras and gaming units like the Sony PSP. Many feel this trend is powerful enough to make the iPod extinct within the next few years. For now, though, the market is all about MP3 players, and SanDisk is well aware of it (that's why it's pushing the Sansa m200 series as mentioned above).

Bottom Lines

There's no doubt that SanDisk has stirred up some attention in the music space; however, it still has a lot of work to do before it takes on Apple. For one, it has too many brand names: Flash, Gruvi, microSD, TrustedFlash...which is it? We know they all have different meanings, but I can foresee this being confusing for the average music fan. Despite the confusing names, SanDisk has the advantage because of its steady position as the leading manufacturer of flash memory cards. So when MP3 phones or gaming units become the next big thing for music playback, SanDisk will simply drop its line of players and ship more SD cards.