Apple buys up Samsungs flash memory stock
Apple and Samsung have been hardware bedfellows for a long time now, and the latest rumour suggests the iPhone manufacturer has snapped up Samsungs entire stock of NAND flash memory until April 2009.
Samsung currently manufactures more than 40 per cent of the worlds flash RAM supplies, so this is a monumental amount of silicon for Apple to be stock piling. Two possible reasons spring to mind for Apples massive bulk purchase.
Either its gearing up for an iPhone hardware refresh (or even a full hardware update, if rumours are to be believed), or its locking out the competition.
This alleged RAM order would cause a significant NAND memory shortage, and undoubtedly drive up the costs of flash RAM for the rest of the worlds hardware manufacturers.
Of course, it could be both of these possibilities, and Apple has simply timed any iPhone updates superbly well to stymie the competition.
But this kind of shortage has an upside, too. It demonstrates a product demand, and will hopefully stimulate the competition to trend up the development, supply and pricing of flash memory.