Symbian supports next generation SD Memory Card

Symbian joins Secure Digital Association - driving memory standards and interoperability for the wireless information device industry

LONDON, Symbian Developer Expo (November 6, 2000) - Symbian today announced their full support for the SD Memory Card, a standard aiming at enabling new digital consumer products and Internet applications. With a commitment to promote the SD Memory card to its licensees, Symbian has also been registered as a member of the Secure Digital Association (SDA), an organization with the aim to set industry standards for the SD (Secure Digital) Memory Card and promote its wide acceptance in digital applications.

"Symbian is working with Toshiba, Matsushita, SanDisk and other key members to set standards and promote the SD Memory Card as the de facto memory card for digital devices," commented Colly Myers, CEO, Symbian. "As a key member of SDA we will be focusing on setting these standards and ensuring interoperability for content storage. Enabling simple and secure storage of feature rich applications and data will help drive the market for wireless information devices."

The SD Memory Card specification has attained strong, worldwide support from leading companies across the industry. The SD specification was developed by Matsushita, SanDisk and Toshiba.

Mr. Kouki Hiroki Suda, director and Board member of Matsushita Communication Industrial Co., Ltd and board member of Symbian, says, "Mobile telephones will evolve from a device for voice communications into an Internet terminal to access e-mails and the Internet, and further into multimedia mobile terminals to distribute music and images when W-CDMA services start. I am sure Symbian's powerful technology and SD card, which is small and enables secure data exchange with a large memory capacity, will be the best combination for the development of multimedia mobile terminals with many functions to exchange a large amount of content."

The flash-memory based removable storage card provides a compact, reliable and easy-to-use medium to store high volumes of audio, visual, and other data for digital music players, cameras, Smartphones, video cameras, cellular phones, GPS systems and other digital consumer electronics products. Its strong copyright protection capability meets the requirements of artists and content owners and offers greater data security for users.

With a physical profile of 24 millimeters (mm) x 32mm x 2.1mm, which is as tiny as a postage stamp, the new card will provide both an SDMI-compliant (Secure Digital Music Initiative), high-level of copyright protection and high-density memory capacity.

About SDA

The SDA, headquartered in California, was founded by Matsushita Electric, SanDisk and Toshiba with the specific aim to promote the next generation SD Memory Card. The SDA now counts more than 140 market-leading companies from around the world, covering diverse industries including consumer electronics, information processing, telecommunications, entertainment and software. The association aims to establish technical and specification standards for the SD Memory Card applications, promote the next generation memory card to make it widely used in the industry through standardization, and encourage development of products in the field of digital A/V equipment and digital information network equipment.

About Symbian

Symbian owns, develops and licenses a software platform for next generation mobile phones. Owned by Ericsson, Matsushita (Panasonic), Motorola, Nokia and Psion, Symbian's mission is to license the Symbian platform to all mobile phone manufacturers and to create a mass market for next generation mobile phones by working closely with wireless networks, content, messaging and enterprise wide solution providers.

Symbian is holding a Developer Expo, focusing on version 6 of its platform, in central London, November 6th-7th. Sponsored by BrainDock, Nokia and Sun Microsystems, attendees can hear keynotes from Colly Myers, CEO Symbian, Hans Snook, CEO Orange and Charles Dunstone, CEO Carphone Warehouse as well as workshops, demos and presentations from other partners.

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