Lexar and SanDisk Not Rushing XQD Memory Cards Out the Door

One would think that a new and promising memory card standard would be quick to get the support of all companies that would benefit from marketing it, but that does not seem to be the case for XQD.

Looks like only two of the four companies known to be planning on selling XQD cards are actually going to apply haste to their movements.

While Sony will start shipping them (and Nikon will sell cameras that support them) soon, SanDisk and Lexar will not.

The Latest memory card standard was announced back in December, 2011.

Later, Sony revealed the first cards to leave its labs with support for the new specification.

For those who don't remember or just haven't read about them yet, XQD memory cards can work at a data transfer speed of up 125 MB/s or more.

That said, Nikon and Sony will begin shipping their respective products (cards and cameras) at some point next month, February 2012.

Meanwhile, SanDisk and Lexar will hold back and keep watching how XQD develops.

“At this time, SanDisk has chosen not to productize the XQD format,” SanDisk spokeswoman Wendy Vlieks told CNET News.

In retrospect, it makes a significant amount of sense for the Lexar, at least, to be reserved in regards to the new standard.

After all, XQD is, at the end of the day, meant to replace the CompactFlash format.

Normally, this would not be such a big problem, but the fact remains that it was not long ago that Lexar unleashed a line of 1000x CompactFlash Cards.

“As a leading CFA member, Lexar has been evaluating this technology, and will continue to do so as the market develops to determine if we will offer XQD cards in the future,” said Manisha Sharma, Lexar's director of product marketing for cards.

All in all, Sony will have a sort of monopoly over the XQD format for a while.