Samsung failing to meet flash demand?

Just last week, we reported on a power outage at Samsung's primary flash memory fabrication plant in South Korea. At the time, it remained unclear if the outage would effect the supply--and price--of flash memory worldwide, as Samsung is the world's largest manufacturer of the rewritable memory chips. Well, the latest news is that, uh, it still remains unclear. Samsung competitor PQI (i.e. some tiny company that we've never heard of before this) has stepped forward to claim that Samsung will be able to fulfill only 85 percent of its open flash orders to "its major customers" this month, leading to a flash shortage, higher prices and a void in the market (that could presumably be filled by tiny companies that we've never heard of). The oft-unreliable DigiTimes appeared to confirm these reports but according to Samsung, it just isn't true--the company issued a statement last week asserting that it would fill 100 percent of its orders. While this is the tech industry equivalent of a game of "he said, she said" right now, we'll all find out soon enough: a shortage of flash leading into the holiday season could put a damper on folks hoping to find a shiny new iPhone or Zune Mini under the tree.

For more on the rumors:
- see this Gizmodo article