Lexar. To photographers of a certain age, the word used to be almost synonymous with flash memory. Although it was started in 1996, photographers might better remember its agreement with Kodak way back in 2004 to co-market memory cards. Typical of the announcements coming out from the company in those days was this one, when Lexar and Kodak announced in 2006 that they were introducing a line of “high performance” SD cards to reduce the time needed between shooting photos and having them recorded by the camera (it would also optimize video recording in certain cameras). For context, those cards were initially available at 512MB and 1GB!
Lexar had a special affinity with photographers. In fact, for years Lexar’s chief marketing officer was Jeff Cable, a professional photographer. (You can see some of his photos right here on Adorama’s Learning Center – we featured his work all the way back in 2007!)
But the market changed. Lexar’s parent company, Micron announced that it was closing the Lexar business. Although in their official blog post about it they only explained the decision as being made “as part of the company’s ongoing efforts to focus on its increasing opportunities in higher value markets and channels,” industry observers noted that there was such a high demand in the enterprise-level flash memory market that it made no financial sense for them to focus on consumers. Micron still recognized the value that the Lexar brand has, and it announced at the same time that it was looking for opportunities to sell all or part of the business. And pretty soon a buyer showed up – Chinese company Longsys bought Lexar in 2017.
Longsys kept mostly quiet since then about its intentions for the Lexar brand. But this month, in a release on the Lexar website, Lexar and Longsys announced that they are going back into “full production and shipping globally” this fall.
It’s also apparent from the release that they’re looking to Lexar to maintain its status as an innovator in the flash memory space. What was more intriguing is the emphasis they made on professionals: “Continued engagement with professional photographers, videographers, and creative professionals will ensure that the right products are created for the right markets.”
Can it be that Lexar is prioritizing their focus on the professional market?
But in any case, Lexar’s long history in the market meant that it never even fully left the market. You can still get Lexar even before the new production makes it into the pipeline. Enjoy it!
