Very surprising and sad news when a market leader disappears, especially when it is not a company going bust.
Lexar innovated and pushed the technology, and afaik, have the fastest SD and XQD cards. Glad I got one of each for the D500.
Lexar and Sandisk seemed to push each other. Is there anyone who can push Sandisk the same way? This seems to leave Sandisk as the only 'go to' brand. Hope they keep pushing themselves, but no competition may have an adverse effect on prices and innovation.
Doesn't look good for the future of the XQD format too. Only Sony now producing cards atm, and they don't seem too keen to push the format and use them in their own consumer products. Weird as they invented the format with Nikon and Sandisk. Maybe Sandisk will now start producing them, though what prices they would charge is anybody's guess. And would they be as fast as the Lexar XQD cards! :-/