Sandisk's (SNDK) Harebrained New Product

Sandisk (SNDK) has its own solution for moving content from the PC to the TV. Companies from Intel (INTC) to Microsoft (MSFT) have been working on this problems for years. Apple (AAPL) TV is an attempt to solve the problem of "home networking". But, its sales appear to be minuscule.

Now the disk storage company has come up with something completely different.

According to The Wall Street Journal Sandisk "will begin selling Sansa TakeTV, a small device that stores digital video so it can be physically moved between a personal computer and television set. The idea is to avoid the need to use a home network or a specialized device." It will also offer content that will run, at least most of it, free and supported by ads.

Sandisk has several big problems. The first is that no one watching TV at home has ever heard of the company. So the branding of the company and the product could cost tens of millions of dollars and take years. In other words, Sandisk is not Apple.

The other major problem is that there is no evidence that consumers want to move video using something that "plugs the device into a USB port on their PCs, loads it with video files and allows them to physically shuttle the device to the TV."

Like Unboxs and Apple TVs and TIVOs, the device is a burden on TV viewers who do not want to watch video from a PC. Satellite TV and cable already give them 900 channels and pay-per-view. What more do they want?

Douglas A. McIntyre