SanDisk Wi-Fi Player Hooks Up with Yahoo

By Geoff Duncan
April 09, 2007

SanDisk announced today it has formed a partnership with Yahoo to provide music, media, and messaging services for its new Sansa Connect Wi-Fi enabled flash-based media player.

"The Sansa Connect is a new breed of music player," said SanDisks' Daniel Schreiber, senior VP and general manager for SanDisk's Audio Video Business Unit, in a statement. "It untethers consumers from their computers, and allows them to get new music and share their recommendations anytime, anywhere—over an open wireless Internet network."

Terms of the Yahoo deal were not disclosed. SanDisk bills itself as the number two seller of portable music players in the United States, trailing only Apple's iPod. (And what a trail that is: the iPod commands about 70 percent of the portable player market and just sold its 100 millionth unit.) The Wi-Fi enabled Sansa Connect may give Sansa a leg up in the portable media space, but the company (which was primarily known as a maker of flash and portable memory before getting into consumer media devices) faces competition from rivals like Sony and Samsung, and shrinking margins in the flash memory market as mobile phones and digital cameras proliferate. The new Wi-Fi and music streaming features might appeal to folks considering a Zune music player—particularly if they're already users of Yahoo's music services.