Lexar taken over by Chinese firm Longsys
- Thread starter Chaitanya
- Start date
https://petapixel.com/2017/09/01/lexar-acquired-chinese-flash-storage-company/
so it will be Lexar label slapped onto Longsys flash cards from now on ...
Remains to be seen which and what quality Lexar-branded products Longsys will offer ... and what aftersales service (like RMA handling etc.) ... and what product / pricing decisions they take.
for SD cards i see little issue, since there are enough makers in the market, but for XQD users things may be a bit more iffy, as there are only 2 makers / brands currently offering them (at least where i live - EU): Sony and Lexar.
Lexar 2933x cards (440/400 MB/s) currently are significantly lower priced than equal speed Sony G series XQD cards ... on Longsys website under products / memory cards / i only see SD and MicroSD cards (some branded as "Foresee" ... lol) but no XQD or CFast products. so possibly there will be only 1 supplier of XQD cards now: Sony! and Sony itself is not using XQD cards in their cameras at all (alpha series, invluding A9). only Nikon is ... D5, D500, D850 ... oO ;-)
so ... interesting times, maybe XQD will soon follow Sony Memory stick into oblivion. Canon appears to have been "not stupid" on this one ... although i dont like CFast either. i'd prefer standardization on Micro SD format and UHS III. more than fast enough for any sort of stills capture. and very small card slots, so Canon could easily put dual slots into an extremely compact full-frame sensor MILC ... wink, wink!
)
luckily i am not immediately affected. dont need XQD cards and am happy with Sandisk flash cards and third party readers (esp. Transcend). and i dont and wont ever record video, 4k, 8k ... or rapid fire stills captures for longer than short bursts.
so it will be Lexar label slapped onto Longsys flash cards from now on ...
Remains to be seen which and what quality Lexar-branded products Longsys will offer ... and what aftersales service (like RMA handling etc.) ... and what product / pricing decisions they take.
for SD cards i see little issue, since there are enough makers in the market, but for XQD users things may be a bit more iffy, as there are only 2 makers / brands currently offering them (at least where i live - EU): Sony and Lexar.
Lexar 2933x cards (440/400 MB/s) currently are significantly lower priced than equal speed Sony G series XQD cards ... on Longsys website under products / memory cards / i only see SD and MicroSD cards (some branded as "Foresee" ... lol) but no XQD or CFast products. so possibly there will be only 1 supplier of XQD cards now: Sony! and Sony itself is not using XQD cards in their cameras at all (alpha series, invluding A9). only Nikon is ... D5, D500, D850 ... oO ;-)
so ... interesting times, maybe XQD will soon follow Sony Memory stick into oblivion. Canon appears to have been "not stupid" on this one ... although i dont like CFast either. i'd prefer standardization on Micro SD format and UHS III. more than fast enough for any sort of stills capture. and very small card slots, so Canon could easily put dual slots into an extremely compact full-frame sensor MILC ... wink, wink!
)luckily i am not immediately affected. dont need XQD cards and am happy with Sandisk flash cards and third party readers (esp. Transcend). and i dont and wont ever record video, 4k, 8k ... or rapid fire stills captures for longer than short bursts.
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well, CFast 2.0 cards are not cheap either. situation is pretty similar to XQD. other than lexar only Sandisk and Transcend are offering them. Transcend only lower speeds. plus 2 or 3 secondary brands/re-packagers (delock, angelbird, ...).
will be interesting to see, whether Longsys is willing and able to offer XQD and/or CFast 2.0 cards with Lexar label ...
i dont really see the need for either. would prefer SD/MicroSD format only. further speed and capacity gains should be no major issue. sandisk just announced a 400 GB MicroSD card and speeds are ever improving as well. so i dont really see a need for XQD or CFast card formats. woild prefer 1 standard with as many makers as possible = best prices and least hassle for us buyers/users.
will be interesting to see, whether Longsys is willing and able to offer XQD and/or CFast 2.0 cards with Lexar label ...
i dont really see the need for either. would prefer SD/MicroSD format only. further speed and capacity gains should be no major issue. sandisk just announced a 400 GB MicroSD card and speeds are ever improving as well. so i dont really see a need for XQD or CFast card formats. woild prefer 1 standard with as many makers as possible = best prices and least hassle for us buyers/users.
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Talys said:
I expected it to be bought by another company for the brand name, intellectual property, know how, etc.
Manufacturing is moving east for decades, and there's sense in doing everything (from NANDs to slapping the sticker on) in one place.
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AvTvM said:
Price and backward compatibility will win, until it can't be stretched forward anymore.
Microsoft proved this. DEC had superior hardware and software, but Ken Olsen thought the company could charge a premium for it. Apple was innovative, but breaking backward compatibility twice, and turned the Mac into a niche market.
CF can't be stretched no more. CFast doesn't gather momentum, and CFexpress is already out, so I bet is it would die as well. CFexpress doesn't seem to gather momentum either.
My bet is that when the dust settles, SD UHS III will come on top, and XQD & CF[& descendants] will go the way of the Betamax.
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AvTvM said:https://petapixel.com/2017/09/01/lexar-acquired-chinese-flash-storage-company/
so it will be Lexar label slapped onto Longsys flash cards from now on ...
Remains to be seen which and what quality Lexar-branded products Longsys will offer ... and what aftersales service (like RMA handling etc.) ... and what product / pricing decisions they take.
for SD cards i see little issue, since there are enough makers in the market, but for XQD users things may be a bit more iffy, as there are only 2 makers / brands currently offering them (at least where i live - EU): Sony and Lexar.
Lexar 2933x cards (440/400 MB/s) currently are significantly lower priced than equal speed Sony G series XQD cards ... on Longsys website under products / memory cards / i only see SD and MicroSD cards (some branded as "Foresee" ... lol) but no XQD or CFast products. so possibly there will be only 1 supplier of XQD cards now: Sony! and Sony itself is not using XQD cards in their cameras at all (alpha series, invluding A9). only Nikon is ... D5, D500, D850 ... oO ;-)
so ... interesting times, maybe XQD will soon follow Sony Memory stick into oblivion. Canon appears to have been "not stupid" on this one ... although i dont like CFast either. i'd prefer standardization on Micro SD format and UHS III. more than fast enough for any sort of stills capture. and very small card slots, so Canon could easily put dual slots into an extremely compact full-frame sensor MILC ... wink, wink!
luckily i am not immediately affected. dont need XQD cards and am happy with Sandisk flash cards and third party readers (esp. Transcend). and i dont and wont ever record video, 4k, 8k ... or rapid fire stills captures for longer than short bursts.
It really doesn't concern most on here, since this is a largely still photo oriented site, but Sony uses XQD in some of their professional video/Cine cameras. And while they may seem expensive on a "stills" level and compared to the Lexar offering(past tense?), Sony actually has them "set-up" as an extremely less expensive, fully compatible, alternative media(with adapter) to their much more expensive SxS cards for use in their F5 and F55 cameras and they are the native media for their Fs7/Fs7mkII. So instead of spending close to a $1K per 128GB SxS card for my F55 I spend just under $200 for an XQD and adapter. Very un-Sony, but hey, don't look a gift horse in the mouth.
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While the news is likely great for the brand, the buyer throws a yellow flag on my enthusiasm to stay with the product. State-run/approved companies (China, Koreas, Russia, ...) are under scrutiny for good reason. Not all are dirty, but not all are clean.
While I'm not overly concerned with what can be done to/gotten from my cameras: sticking a card into a computer is another story in this age of cyber security issues.
Having choices helps avoid some 'potential issues'. Time will tell.
While I'm not overly concerned with what can be done to/gotten from my cameras: sticking a card into a computer is another story in this age of cyber security issues.
Having choices helps avoid some 'potential issues'. Time will tell.
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Longsys is a company that has not had a public face in the US, but has been making components for OEM's, as well as ODM products. Obviously, they have a pile of money in order to swing a deal like this.
Like others, I will likely be a bit cautious, I've purchased mostly Lexar products in the past, and never had a failure. I expect that customer service will continue using lexar employees but probably in a new location.
With the huge demand for high end flash memory, Lexar is throwing everything into producing it and letting others duke it out in the competitive market foe SD cards.
The current forcast for flash memory says that even with new production coming on line, supplies will be tight thru 2018, which means high end SSD's will be expensive. No 2TB or greater SSD's for me. I would really want a 3 or 4TB to replace my current 4TB spinning drives that hold my data and photos. I use 500GB and 1TB as boot and program drives, which also hold the huge Lightroom database.
Like others, I will likely be a bit cautious, I've purchased mostly Lexar products in the past, and never had a failure. I expect that customer service will continue using lexar employees but probably in a new location.
With the huge demand for high end flash memory, Lexar is throwing everything into producing it and letting others duke it out in the competitive market foe SD cards.
The current forcast for flash memory says that even with new production coming on line, supplies will be tight thru 2018, which means high end SSD's will be expensive. No 2TB or greater SSD's for me. I would really want a 3 or 4TB to replace my current 4TB spinning drives that hold my data and photos. I use 500GB and 1TB as boot and program drives, which also hold the huge Lightroom database.
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AvTvM said:well, CFast 2.0 cards are not cheap either. situation is pretty similar to XQD. other than lexar only Sandisk and Transcend are offering them. Transcend only lower speeds. plus 2 or 3 secondary brands/re-packagers (delock, angelbird, ...).
will be interesting to see, whether Longsys is willing and able to offer XQD and/or CFast 2.0 cards with Lexar label ...
i dont really see the need for either. would prefer SD/MicroSD format only. further speed and capacity gains should be no major issue. sandisk just announced a 400 GB MicroSD card and speeds are ever improving as well. so i dont really see a need for XQD or CFast card formats. woild prefer 1 standard with as many makers as possible = best prices and least hassle for us buyers/users.
You can get an SD to CFast adapter, though, to give you a cheap out if you don't need that speed. I'm very happy with cheap SD, personally!
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When I heard that Lexar was done with the small retail market it pushed me to get something I have been thinking of for a long time, the HR2 hub and four of the readers and the USB thing. I use CFast, CF card, SD cards and micro SD cards so it made sense and cleared up my desk, I got the USB thing to have somewhere easy and convenient to plug in thumb drives . But the performance boost moving to a thunderbolt workflow is mighty impressive, particularly the CFast card reader which has two ports on the back for USB3 and native thunderbolt.
Not a cheap option for multiple card reading but it does work really well. I didn't see any point to the optional HDD modules so didn't get any.
Only complains so far, it is too light and easy to move when you pull a card out and the micro SD slots really should be a push to eject as they don't have much sticking out and are awkward to remove when finished with. But all in all a great idea and implementation that I highly recommend to anybody with thunderbolt ports who needs multiple card format use.
Not a cheap option for multiple card reading but it does work really well. I didn't see any point to the optional HDD modules so didn't get any.
Only complains so far, it is too light and easy to move when you pull a card out and the micro SD slots really should be a push to eject as they don't have much sticking out and are awkward to remove when finished with. But all in all a great idea and implementation that I highly recommend to anybody with thunderbolt ports who needs multiple card format use.
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Chaitanya said:
Indeed.
This sounds deceitful. People buy brand name for the innards, not the logo.
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People used to pay that for a 2GB CF card. And then they all threw hissy fits when SD got more popular and offered more space for less, because they'd 'invested' so much in CF.Talys said:
And Canon will move to XQD. It's only a matter of time before CFast and XQD have completely taken over. The only thing that could derail that progress is the possibility of SD being replaced by MicroSD (for smaller SLRs and mirrorless, presumably) and the outside chance of on board SSDs becoming viable (the Canon 1D & Nikon Dx bodies being prime candidates). But it's unlikely anyone will start putting 1TB+ m.2 SSDs into an SLR and MicroSD doesn't yet hold enough of an advantage over regular SD to be worth the cost of production accommodating them, so it's far more likely that CF and SD will simply be replaced by CFast and XQD.
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aceflibble said:
Canon will move, one day, to CFExpress. Smaller CFExpress card will have the XQD form factor (other form factors will be availabe, depending on the number of PCIe lanes), but they use a standard PCIe 3.0 (instead of XQD 2.0) and NVMe interfaces, making them compatible with a large number of devices without relying on proprietary standards.
Don't expect SD cards to be used on high-end devices, especially those needing high-speed and low latency.
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aceflibble said:
Well sure people used to pay that much for CF cards; they used to pay a lot for mechanical hard drives. People used to pay a lot for USB 1.0 sticks too. Thanks, but I don't really want to go back to paying that, when most of that extra speed is nearly of zero benefit to me.
If there were two XQD options, one for high speed expensive video and one for low speed cheap stills, I'd be far more in favor of it.
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aceflibble said:
After I bought my Nikon CP-990 in 2000, I bought a 85mb CF card. There was nothing larger. It cost me something like $185. I've never paid that much for a card since. My 128GB Lexar that I just bought was about $125. XQD cards are slightly more expensive, CFast cards are much more expensive.
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