The article appears to have gone from the link I gave but i'll have a look for it, this following snippet comes form a much bigger article on the prospects for Ipod going further. One gets the feeling Apple are just scratching the surface of the potential for the Ipod at the moment.
Finally, in late 2004, rumors began to swirl that Apple was planning to conquer the only remaining portion of the digital music market it didn't yet control: solid state ("flash") memory music players. Analysts reported that Apple had contracted with SigmaTel, provider of chips for numerous competing digital music devices, to use its tiny chip in an impending flash-based iPod product. If true, Apple's deal with SigmaTel (after working for years with PortalPlayer and Wolfson Microelectronics, suppliers of chips used in both the iPod and iPod mini) would signal that Apple remains concerned about pricing, profitability, and rapid delivery of newer and smaller products to the low-end of the music player market, and did not believe that its existing partners had an equally attractive solution available. While there are pros and cons to broadening a company's chain of suppliers, we tend to think that flexibility in this regard is a good thing for Apple (and consumers) at this point in time.
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