Is Lexar gone for good? A very sad day for me and so many others!

Two weeks from now will mark the one year anniversary of my exit from Lexar and being a completely independent photographer.  It was a tough decision for me to make, since I loved my job, the company and the people too. But my photography business grew too big for me to do both things well. And so I made the big jump into the world of full time photography and am loving this more than ever. But that is not to say that I don't miss my other family at Lexar, and I have made it a point to visit quite often and even have a standing lunch there every couple of weeks.

But yesterday was a really sad day. I was doing some contract photography at the Micron campus (the parent company of Lexar) and found out that Micron announced that they will discontinue all Lexar business. This means that if no other company purchases all or part of Lexar, the brand will be gone forever!

After spending 12 years at Lexar as Director of Marketing, it saddens me to even think about this possibility. I guess you can say that I am shocked. Yeah - I know - I am no longer at the company. But after being there for so long and investing so much of my life to the brand, Lexar is in my blood. Here are some of my favorite product memories:

* I remember when 16x speed was fast! (At this point the fastest SD cards are 2000x and CFast at 3600x)

* I remember when we announced the super high capacity 1GB compact flash card, and it sold for almost $1000.

* I remember having an SD card on my desk that had a 4GB label on it. Someone came in and excitedly asked if it was really a 4GB SD card. My response was "Goodness no - this is just a fake label. We can't cram 4GB into a card this size!" Now I am using 256GB SD cards.

* I remember when we came out with an 8GB card and all the photographers at PhotoPlus were telling me they would NEVER use such a large card. "It is too many eggs in one basket" they would say.

* I remember launching the 512GB compact flash card and wondering what people would do with such massive storage (and I still wonder just a little).

Last night, Micron posted a message on their blog announcing this decision. As I read the short piece, it just made me realize how lucky I was to be part of such a great company / division. And I should mention that Micron was an amazing parent company through the years, letting us drive the business the way that we wanted to.

For those of you wondering, it was not that Lexar was doing badly, it just was not a highly profitable focus for Micron.  And Micron is better known for producing the memory chips than the actual memory cards and USB drives. It may have been the right business decision, but it still hurts all of us who spent so much time building, marketing, distributing selling and supporting the products.

I am sitting here writing this blog, looking at the stacks of Lexar memory cards and the best card reader solution which are on my desk. Most people look at those as camera accessories, but I look at them and remember all the endless meetings, product designs, product naming surveys, marketing pieces, product shots, trade show booths and so much more.

To me Lexar was and will always be:

* Great products
* Great people
* Great support
* A great brand

It makes me sad to think that this brand could follow Kodak as the next camera accessory brand to fade away.

I guess, like all good things, sometimes they have to come to an end.

If you work for a company in the San Francisco Bay Area and are looking for some amazingly talented employees who have passion for what they do, let me know. I know some outstanding people with the following skills:

* Marketing Managers
* Graphics Designers
* Copy Editors
* Logistics
* Sales (different territories)

* Product Managers
* Administrative

You can reach me at jeff at jeffcable.com.

For all of you out there who are using Lexar products, I am sure that they will continue to work well for you for many years. I hope that the products continue to assist you in creating memories for yourself.

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