IBM 1GB Microdrive - Bigger, Faster, Tougher, Cheaper
This article from 'Computergram' is worth reading, it also talks about CF/memory stick, and the impending announcement of 9MPixel cameras. I think there isa mistake about the pricing, it says $99 but then compares it with other sized models and it doesnt match up. I think they have missed a '4' in front of the '99', so it will be $499. (do the maths yourself and see if you agree with me)
Joe
By Phil Jones
Visitors to the New York PC Expo on June 27 will have the first
public glimpse of IBM's 1GB Microdrive, the latest in IBM's range of
after-dinner mint-sized disk drives. IBM thinks the new drives will
"turn today's digital still cameras into genuine movie
cameras" by almost trebling the storage capacity accessible from
a standard Compact Flash Type II interface. The Armonk, New York
company claims that dozens of OEMs are already committed to using it
in a raft of new products ranging from MP3 players to PDAs, and
geo-positioning systems, and believes it will become a standard
portable storage media for laptop computers over the next several
years.
True to form IBM is coy about releasing sales figures for its first
generation 340MB Microdrive which starting shipping last June (CI No
3,685). However, John Fox, EMEA product marketing manager for IBM's
Technology Group said that in this time Microdrive "has been
taken up and endorsed by all the leading camera manufacturers"
as well as a respectable number of other electronic goods makers,
including Dell Computer, Psion Plc and, of course, IBM itself, which
now bundles Microdrive with some laptops.
The key to this success, said Fox, has been IBM's disciplined
decision to resist packaging Microdrive against a proprietary
interface, and instead make a significant investment in custom
microelectronics which allows the Microdrive to fit the now nearly
ubiquitous (in most laptops) Compact Flash Type II slot.
Perhaps partly due to the availability of the Microdrive itself,
Compact Flash is also fast approaching near-ubiquity in the digital
camera space too. The original 340MB product meets the requirements
of the digital "snapper" in almost all regards: it is
small, measuring 42.8mm x 36.4mm x 5mm and weighing just 16 grams; a
frugal power consumer, burning 300mA in spin-mode and 65mA in
standby; and capacious. Its most obvious competitor in this market
and other compact arenas is either straight compact flash, or Sony's
proprietary Memory Stick technology. The former is less capacious and
more expensive, and the latter is most notable by its absence from
all but a handful of usually Sony-built consumer goods.
The 1GB Microdrive should magnify all these strengths. Utilizing its
own-developed advances in GMR (giant magneto resistive) head
technology and a new plastic-toughened platter, IBM has has increased
the areal density of the new products (which includes a new 512MB
model) to 12.4GB per square inch from 5.4GB in the first generation.
As well as more than doubling actual storage capacity, the increased
density has the added advantage of allowing IBM to offer the same
average seek time read of 15ms as the 340MB drive, and a sustained
data rate increased to 4.2Mbps from 3.2Mbps with no increase in
platter spin rates or power consumption. In fact, the rotational
speed of the 1GB device is reduced to 3,600 RPM from 4,500 in the
340MB model, which in turn reduces the sustained read/write power
consumption of the higher capacity device to 235mA from 300mA in the
340MB drive. Add some extra enhanced micro-electronics in the new
model, and standby power consumption has been pared down to just
26mA.
The new drive is, in short, bigger, faster and more power-economic
than its predecessor, and will also set a new price/performance
benchmark that will see the 1GB Microdrive start retailing at $99 in
September, or $050 per MB. That's 38 cents cheaper per MB than the
$299 340MB model, and 28 cents less than the 512MB device, which will
retail at around $399. More to the point, it is a third of the cost
per MB of a typical 192MB Flash module retailing at $289.
At this price per MB, there should be few economic barriers to
Microdrive's arrival in the "pervasive computing" market
which IBM believes is just around the corner, and very few practical
constraints. It should certainly be tough enough to withstand the
wear and tear of personal "life-style" use being capable,
IBM claims, of withstanding an impact of 1500Gs. This is a deal
tougher than the average desktop drive which is typically supposed to
be able to withstand a 300G shock, although not so tough, said Fox,
"that we actually want to encourage people to see how hard they
can throw it against a wall before it breaks."
So where will the new bigger, faster, cheaper and tougher Microdrive
find its best market opportunity? Apart from having the capacity to
turn still cameras into movie cameras Lou Lewis, EMEA director of
sale and business development for IBM's technology group, notes that
the arrival of 9Mega-pixel resolution (roughly three times the
resolution of conventional 35mm film) digital cameras in time for
Christmas could hardly have been timed better for IBM's purposes.
Users of these higher resolution cameras could stick to Flash storage
"but only if they want to take one picture at a time" said
Lewis.
Something similar might be said for buyers of solid state MP3
players. A first generation MP3 player built around a 64Mb Flash card
yields roughly one hour of music play. IBM claims the 1GB Microdrive
can store 18 hours of music, although if OEMs such as Diamond
Multimedia, E.Digital and I 2 Go (which have all committed to
building Microdrive-based media players) want to retain a neat form
factor accommodating two AA batteries, actual playing time is
restricted to 10 hours.
But cameras and MP3 players are only part of the opportunity. Casio
is already using the Microdrive in its Cassiopeia PDA, Dell is
bundling it with laptops, Hewlett-Packard has designed a printer
dedicated to colour picture reproduction around the device, and an
unnamed but "well know" maker of digital projectors is also
preparing to market a new Compact Flash-enabled product that offers
the potential of portable presentation's without the need to lug
around a laptop to drive them.
In Europe, claims Lewis, the number of OEMs lining up to use the 1GB
Microdrive is already running into dozens, and the variety of
applications they are targeting is almost as numerous, including
mobile geo-positioning systems, ruggedised field servers for the
military, in-car entertainment centers, and set-top boxes. Some
boringly conventional types may even use the Microdrive as a higher
capacity, and smaller format alternative to the Zip drive, and Lewis
envisages retailers selling individual preformatted drive's as
emergency boot disks for failed laptops.
With all these potential applications, IBM is understandably bullish
about the prospects for its new baby, and even breaks with its normal
reticence to make market predictions, and cites a Semico Research
forecast that shipments of potential Microdrive host systems will
reach 9.4 million units by 2003. Of course, that won't necessarily
translate into 9.4 million Microdrive units. But since, at the
moment, no one else knows how to make a Microdrive, whatever the
proportion of Compact Flash drive's ultimately houses one of the
devices, they will all say IBM on the label. |
