Third-party memory module producers cannot be pleased; there is a report that Samsung will start marketing its own branded memory modules - at which point it may start selling less memory chips to third party module makers.

At this point, I don't know exactly how this will affect the consumer market. Currently, Samsung sold the raw chips and various OEM's made modules based on them, competing based on warranty, speed grades and brand recognition.

If Samsung starts reducing the ammount of chips it sells on the open market, and starts selling its own modules, it will come as a double whammy to all those OEM's as the presumably constrained supply will force OEM pricing up, while Samsung's internal pricing will allow it to offer modules for less, putting it into a position to potentially squeeze many OEM's out of the memory module market.

Ofcourse, Samsung is not the only memory vendor, and other memory manufacturers are likely to increase the availability of their chips on the open market - which shold stabilize pricing.