To all - interesting article on the future of floppy drives
Floppy Drive Alternatives Sought Floppy Drive Alternatives Sought (05/27/97; 8:45 a.m. EDT)
By Kelly Spang, Computer Reseller News
The traditional floppy drive has not seen a performance or capacity upgrade in nearly 10 years, prompting VARs and systems integrators to seek alternatives.
Particularly with graphics-intensive applications where a single file can average 25 Mbytes, the 1.44-Mbyte floppy media does not have the needed storage.
As a means to add value, VARs are starting to integrate alternative high-capacity floppies into systems, either as a complement to the traditional floppy or as a replacement for the 1.44-Mbyte drive.
"Floppy drives are on their way out," said Joe Weingarten, president of Weingarten Gallery, a Dayton, Ohio-based VAR. "Within the next few years, you won't see the [1.44-Mbyte] floppy anymore."
By 1999, shipments of high-capacity floppies are expected to reach 25.5 million drives, up from 5.1 million drives in 1996, according to research from Disk/Trend Inc., Mountain View, Calif.
However, the 1.44-Mbyte floppy is expected to persist through the decade with 106 million drives expected in 1999, a projected 3 percent more than drive shipments in 1998, according to Disk/Trend.
What will replace the traditional floppy drive over time is still subject to debate, with two competing technologies vying for position. Both the LS-120 floppy drive and the Zip drive are competing for mind share among VARs looking to integrate a higher-capacity floppy drive.
The LS-120, a 3.5-inch 120-Mbyte floppy drive, offers backward compatibility with current floppy drives. As an upgrade to the 1.44-Mbyte floppy, VARs can offer a higher-capacity, higher-performing floppy drive that reads and writes older media.
"The beauty [of the LS-120] for VARs who are custom-building their own [solution] is there is no additional hardware costs for LS-120 compatibility," said Greg Goelz, vice president of worldwide marketing and sales for Campbell, Calif.-based O.R Technology Inc., a manufacturer of the LS-120.
Compaq Computer Corp. has adopted the LS-120 as the floppy drive for 15 percent of its systems in lieu of the traditional floppy, Goelz said.
Another contender for the floppy replacement market is Iomega Corp., Roy, Utah, with its 3.5-inch 100-Mbyte Zip drive. "Zip technology is not burdened with support of old floppy technology," said Mike Lynch, worldwide OEM product line manager for the desktop Zip business. "It is not chained to an obsolete format. Forward compatibility is what the world needs."
Touting its installed base of more than 5 million Zip drives, Iomega is appealing to VARs and OEMs to consider its drives for integration.
With appropriate BIOS support, both the LS-120 and the Zip drive can function as a bootable a:drive.
The Zip drive is priced at $149; the LS-120 is priced at $210.
Zip, however, is not used today as a replacement for the 1.44-Mbyte floppy, and systems that ship with internal Zip drives often include a floppy drive, Lynch said.
"We include a floppy with [an integrated Zip drive], which increases the cost of the base system but gives the necessary flexibility," said Peter Schneider, director of marketing for Liuski International Inc., an Atlanta-based distributor also involved in custom configurations.
While Liuski is integrating Zips into its Magitronic line of PCs, there have not been many customer requests for the LS-120. It may still be early for VARs to phase out the floppy drive.
The opportunity for VARs is to add value by differentiating systems with these emerging floppy technologies into a system that has a traditional floppy drive.
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