SanDisk announced on Monday that it has reached agreement with EMI Music, SONY BMG, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group to create a new music delivery format on "slotMusic" cards, microSD cards that will soon be available with preloaded music.

SanDisk said that a selection of slotMusic cards will first be available at brick-and-mortar and online stores throughout the U.S., including Best Buy and Wal-Mart, with Europe to follow. They plan to publish a complete list of slotMusic albums with availability and pricing in time for the holidays.

SanDisk "slotMusic"

"slotMusic offers consumers an immediate, tangible, and high quality alternative to CDs and digital delivery," said Danielle Levitas, vice president, Consumer, Broadband & New Media, IDC. "This year, more than 1.2 billion mobile phones will ship globally, outstripping portable media players by nearly an order of magnitude - and this trend is accelerating."

The 1 GB card will ship with a small USB sleeve to insure seamless operation with Macs, PCs, and Linux. The MP3 songs will be encoded at 320 kbps. With 1 GB capacity, the slotMusic cards can hold, in addition to songs, liner notes, album art, videos, and other creative content that an artist may choose. Consumers can also add their own content to a slotMusic card, creating a personal plug-and-play media library.

A smaller format for music delivery, compared to plastic CDs, makes economic and environmental sense, avoids scratching issues with CDs, and will be less expensive to ship. Even so, it will likely take a long time to see if customers take to this new format.