[SanDisk offers new toolkit to handset manufacturers designed to help developers and designers quickly add removable flash storage capabilities to Symbian OS based smartphones.]

Sunnyvale, CA -- SanDisk Corporation announced that it is offering a comprehensive software development tool kit for Symbian OS that supports all of the major removable and embedded flash memory storage card formats including Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro/Duo, MultiMediaCard, SD/miniSD cards and SanDisk's embedded Tri-Flash(tm)product. SanDisk's development tool kit is designed to help developers and designers quickly integrate support for removable flash storage cards in new mobile phone designs. Flash memory cards are becoming very popular in new generations of mobile phones that incorporate content-intensive features such as digital cameras, games and MP3 music files, also known as "smartphones."

Symbian develops and licenses Symbian OS, the global industry standard operating system for smartphones, to the world's leading handset manufacturers that account for over 80 percent of annual worldwide mobile phone sales.

"The camera-phone segment has high growth potential," said Alex Slawsby, mobile phone analyst at International Data Corporation. "Our research shows that while mobile phones with a removable card slot account for 70.44 million units or 15% of global handset sales in 2003, that figure rises rapidly to 420.60 million units or 64% in 2007, an extremely fast rate of growth."

Farshid Sabet, director of OEM Wireless Computing Products Marketing at SanDisk, said, "Our goal is to offer the necessary tools that allow Symbian OS developers to quickly add removable flash storage capabilities to smartphones and bring their products to market faster. The SanDisk Flash card tool kit will help designers enhance integrated voice and data functionality, plus comprehensive applications sets, including personal information management (PIM), gaming, audio and digital cameras. Including an expansion slot for a removable high-speed flash memory card with copy protection will guard a user's personal information and make data easily transferable to other digital devices."

SanDisk offers complete and comprehensive design tool kits for both embedded and removable flash designs. These design tools include various software and hardware technologies including Hardware Synthesis and Simulations Models, Device Drivers for various hardware platforms, FAT File Systems, Power Management, Security SDKs and more.

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