With the popularity of the word "big data", more and more technology companies hope to get involved. Of course, more and more companies benefit from it.
As the foundation of big data, the data storage industry is the most direct beneficiary. SanDisk, a 25-year-old flash memory company, clearly felt this. In the past four quarters, its revenue has continued to grow, reaching $5.6 billion. At present, it is one of the top 500 in the world and the top 500 in the United States.
Twenty-five years ago, three immigrants from China, India and Israel founded this company in Silicon Valley. When SanDisk was founded, the three founders only thought that there would be a market for flash memory technology in the future, but they never expected it to be as big as it is today.
17 In September, Sanjay Mehrotra, one of Sandisk's co-founders and current president and CEO, came to Beijing and accepted an exclusive interview with 2 1 Century Business Herald. The manager who was born in India introduced the development of the company to our reporter and looked forward to the future of the storage industry.
Looking back on the development history of SanDisk, this 25-year-old company has its own "persistence" and "flexibility". From the beginning, it firmly chose flash storage as its development direction, but the specific products are constantly changing, and it can always capture the new trends in the industry in time.
At first, the core business supporting the development of Sandisk was to provide memory cards for camera manufacturers such as Nikon and Kodak. Later, the great development of personal U disk market made SanDisk stand firm in the retail market; Later, with the outbreak of the smart phone market, cooperation with OEMs became the focus of SanDisk's business.
Now, with the advent of the era of big data, both individuals and enterprises have higher standards and requirements for data storage. Sanjay predicted that by 20 14, SSD will become one of the main sources of income.
"Big Data" Bonus
"2 1 century": We noticed that the company's performance in the second quarter of this year has been greatly improved compared with a year ago. What is the reason?
Sanjay: There are three reasons. The first is that our product portfolio is richer, including embedded flash memory, customized solutions and multi-chip flash memory. In addition, we have launched many products in SSD market, including notebook computers and enterprise-level solutions. In addition, in consumer electronics, we also have various types of flash memory products.
Secondly, in the past year, the demand in this industry was very strong. Flash memory was a concept 25 years ago, and now the global market has reached 25 billion dollars, but the development of this market has just begun. For example, with the rapid growth of content and mobile devices, the demand for flash memory will increase.
Finally, continuous innovation, good market adaptability and strong execution are also the most fundamental secrets of success. Through innovation, we constantly explore new market opportunities, which is also the reason why SanDisk Company has been developing and growing for 25 years.
"265438+20th century": Now everyone is discussing the arrival of the era of big data. Is your recent rapid growth related to the trend of big data? What are the new trends in the era of big data?
Sanjay: Indeed, in the era of big data, the demand for storage is rising. For example, billions of mobile phones are constantly processing, acquiring, sharing, modifying and storing data. Nowadays, consumers have a great demand for storing rich content, sharing content and saving content for later use. So there are many opportunities for storage.
At the same time, the application demand of calculation and analysis based on these memories is also rising, and storage devices will play a very important role. In particular, the storage and calculation based on flash memory can be faster, and its power consumption and overall cost are lower, which are opportunities to promote the development of flash memory.
In the era of big data, we also have our own characteristics in the diversity of user needs and differentiated competition. For example, in terms of data security, in 20 12, we acquired two software companies, one called Flash Soft and the other called Zongle Information Technology. In this way, software can be used to speed up the deployment of hardware, including database applications to better serve customers, which is also the difference between SanDisk and other flash memory companies.
265438+20th century: The current achievements of SanDisk can be said to benefit from the explosive growth opportunities of data storage, but how long will the growth dividend of the storage industry last?
Sanjay: Sandisk has a history of 25 years, but I still feel very young. Now the data is growing very fast, and we still have many opportunities in the storage field. Not only in the traditional consumer electronics market and mobile market, we can also foresee many opportunities for flash memory in the future, such as some new concepts, and new markets will be opened to the flash memory industry. For example, wearable devices also include some smart connected home devices, as well as cars and so on.
265438+20th century: What opportunities and challenges will new markets such as wearable devices bring?
Sanjay: Wearable devices will be another big market for flash memory and the front line of the company's future business development. Opportunities and challenges are how to promote the application of flash memory technology in these new fields, as well as the productivity and competitiveness of its products, so that our products will form a balance between supply and demand in the future wearable market. One of our advantages in emerging wearable devices is the scale effect in terms of capital, brand and technology.
The path of development
265438+20th century: As a company that has developed for 25 years, Sandisk has always insisted on only doing flash memory. When the company was founded, did you foresee that the storage industry would develop to today's scale?
Sanjay: Today's achievements were unimaginable when the company was born 25 years ago, because at that time, flash memory technology was just a concept, and there was no such industry at all. By 20 12, we know that the global flash memory industry has a total market value of more than $25 billion.
In the past 25 years, SanDisk has been leading the innovation of flash memory technology, including digital technology, digital platforms, including smart phones, tablets, and enterprise storage based on flash memory. SanDisk and its partners have created almost all innovative solutions and products in this industry, including compact flash cards, SD cards and these flash products which are widely used in smartphones and tablets.
Our continuous investment in innovative flash memory technology has enabled SanDisk to own nearly 4,900 patents covering our products, including technology, design, assembly line and testing, including the application of flash memory products. In the whole flash memory industry, the number of patents we have, including portfolio, is the largest and most comprehensive.
265438+20th Century: You mentioned that flash memory technology was just a concept at first, but it was not an industry. So how did SanDisk develop step by step and survive to this day?
Sanjay: In the first few years, we all cooperated with companies like Nikon and Kodak. At that time, there was no internet, and the quality of digital photos was not high, which was not as good as film. With the great development of the Internet and digital cameras, our business really started. Because sharing photos online has become more convenient and popular.
Later, with the continuous development and maturity of digital imaging technology, we quickly adjusted to meet the opportunities brought by the digital imaging market, and launched our own brand Sandisk, making flash cards, graphics cards and USB products.
We feel that the business of flash memory has just begun, and it is expected that there will be more and more opportunities in mobile phones, tablets and other devices in the future. Due to the development trend of content, mobility and connectivity, we expect that every device with flash memory will have a storage capacity of 32GB in the future.
"2 1 century": There are many companies that do flash memory now. What are the advantages of Sandisk? What business will you focus on in the future?
Sanjay: The first advantage is innovation. In the past 25 years, Sandisk has been providing innovative storage solutions and looking for innovative new market opportunities.
The second is our vertical integration ability. Including initial research and development, transmission to flash memory, chip to flash memory, control system to flash memory, including software supporting flash memory applications.
The third advantage, which I especially want to mention, is that we have the ability of mass production, which is very important for some big customers.
We will focus on three main markets: the first is mobile devices. For major mobile devices including smartphones and tablets, we can provide a full range of products; The second category is the computing field, which provides SSD for customers, including not only laptops, but also data centers and enterprise-level storage applications, and provides them with our products and solutions; The third category is the consumer market. Mainly self-owned brand retail products, including USB flash drives.
265438+20th century: Recently, there is a trend that some companies begin to move their production bases from China to the United States. What do you think of this problem?
Sanjay: At present, all our production bases are in Asia, including Japanese and China, as well as our partners' factories in Shenzhen and Taiwan Province Province. All the production bases are in Asia. We also have no plans to move the production base back to the United States.
We started to set up our own factory in Shanghai as early as 2006, and now 80% of Sandisk products in China are produced by this factory. Our factory in Shanghai has 1400 engineers and service personnel, and 1800 production personnel. As a matter of fact, our business in Shanghai is constantly expanding. In addition, we also have marketing agencies and organizations in Shanghai.
The above is what Bian Xiao shared for you about how to tap the "big data" bonus. For more information, you can pay attention to the global ivy and share more dry goods.