anticipating - this week's big story - in SSD news SSD
investments, x8 flash, and ETs
by
Zsolt Kerekes,
editor
It was Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - and like You - I
was wondering - what's going to be the big
SSD news story of the
week?
October
2012 has gone.
And maybe - by the time you read this -
2012 has gone
too.
It happens.
But I very much
doubt if the
SSD market has gone.
So if you'll indulge me a little...
I'll
ask you to hover over that tap / click / grunt to another page for now -
because I think the article below - which first appeared on the home page of
StorageSearch.com (which I assume is still here in some form or other) - still
works at the start of almost any week in the SSD market and is a kind of
commentary of where we are with the winds of change.
So let's
pretend it's just past the start of another week. - Nothing much happened on
Monday. - And we're wondering... |
| what's
going be the big SSD news story in the days ahead? |
One possibility is
that members of the tech support team accompanying alien delegates in the
mission from Alpha Centauri will - in their spare time between interviews -
let us into the secret of how we can do
reliable SSDs
using x8 flash at 1 picometer geometries (1X pm OLC).
Following
that news - SanDisk,
DensBits and
Skyera will rush out
press releases saying - We told you so! - and will reissue their roadmaps
with wider charts and better magnification at the bottom right hand corners.
Micron might
say -That's great news for a leading flash company like us! - However we
will continue to maintain our current support programs for
PCM while we review
this new data and assess its impact.
Wouldn't that be great news for
SSD fans?
(Not so good for
HDD though. And not so
hot for rack enclosure fan makers either. Unless perhaps the Alpha Centaurians
also reveal new apps for small high precision rotating motors in matter
transforming blenders and coffee makers...)
But sadly OLC (x8) (Octal
Level Cells) 1X pm flash from ETs isn't something you can plug into
outlook just yet.
Something which is - however - is the
quarterly results expected from
Fusion-io on
Wednesday.
Although we can hearken back to a simpler time when the SSD
market was smaller and all the top players in it were private companies - which
in fact isn't that long ago - one of the new realities of the SSD market is that
there's nearly as much interest in SSDs as $$Ds (lucrative investment vehicles)
as in SSDs as business improving technologies.
As part of that fever
last year - I dubbed
2011 - year of
the FIO IPO.
Now there are a lot more SSD companies that
investors are looking at. (Although in many cases - the best value is still in
companies which you can't invest in - unless you buy the whole company and know
what you're doing and can afford to lose all the money too.)
Having
said that - FIO's quarterly results are still eagerly anticipated within the
industry - even by competitors.
A crude way to summarize the reception
of financial news about key SSD companies recently is this.
If an SSD
company is worth significantly more on a Friday than it was on the Monday -
that's taken as a positive endorsement of the whole SSD paradigm. Competitors
go around saying - we're a bit like them too. Everyone's happy.
...On
the other hand...
If an SSD company is worth significantly less on a
Friday than it was on the Monday - that's taken as a negative criticism of
the management. Competitors go around saying - we're nothing like them. Only
lawyers, headhunters and short sellers are happy.
...And yet - on
the other hand... (I promise - this is the last of those "other hands".
Did I say earlier - the AC's are tridexters? I've been thinking about them
too much obviously...)
If an SSD company is worth about the same on a
Friday as it was on the Monday - that's taken as a sign that everything's
going as planned. Stakeholders can breathe a sigh of relief. Competitors think
quietly to themselves - our turn next.
In the SSD market there's
always something new just around the corner you can look forward to.
And
finally, if it's already long past Friday 26th October, 2012 - when you're
reading this and the Alpha Centaurians still haven't put in an appearance...
Don't feel too disheartened.
Think of it this way. - By the time
the AC's do arrive they might be able to give us a few tips about HLC
(x16) (Hex Level Cells - but you knew that already didn't you)... | | |
.. |
| ..... |
|
 |
|
| ..... |
|
|
|
| |
|
