>>>>Any body with a little bit of common sense should know that this new technology will make the ZIP drive obsolete.<<<<
Sorry, Sam but it's just the opposite. The full text of the press releases and the article below shows that this "New" technology doesn't have a chance to be the next floppy, or maybe even a good competitor to other technologies.
It has been discussed hundreds of times on the Fool board, and generally concluded by the more-objective and analytical participants that the CD-ROM read/write technologies are not a threat to either the Zip or the Jaz, especially in the short run, and that the technologies can maybe even peacefully co-exist together. Iomega obviously had a well thought plan for which market segments they wanted to attack.
Any true threat to the Zip in it's niche as the next floppy would have to have the following characteristics:
* Low drive price(probably less than $199 to start, with potential for $50 in the long run).
*low media cost with big potential for cost reduction.
* the user methodology(look and feel) of a floppy.
* form factor that fits into your shirt pocket.
* quick and easy reads and rights ala floppy of the past(now too slow and small).
* be available in a laptop form factor with easy insertion and eject ala floppy.
* have a option for current computer users to easily add this wonderful capability to their old machines, either internally or externally.
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>>By Mike Langberg
Mercury News Staff Writer
Compact disc drives are finally about to perform a feat their simpler cousin, the floppy disk drive, has done for years: record data, erase it and then record again.
A coalition of five big technology companies is holding a news conference in San Francisco this morning to unveil a new technical standard called CD-ReWritable, or CD-RW. CD-RW drives, due early next year for about $750, will read regular CD-ROMs, but will also be able to record information on special CD-RW discs, expected to cost about $25 each, that can be rewritten thousands of times.
Disk drive industry analysts expect CD-RW will find an immediate small market with business and professional users who need to store large amounts of data. Home users, too, could find uses for the huge storage capacity of CD-RW, such as sharing multimedia family photo albums full of visual images and sound clips that would overflow a stack of floppy disks.
Even CD-RW proponents, however, expect CD-RW will be crunched under the wheels of DVD, the successor to CD-ROM, within five years.
The five companies backing CD-RW at today's news conference are Hewlett-Packard Co., Mitsubishi's Verbatim Corp. subsidiary, Philips Electronics, Ricoh Co. and Sony Corp. Between them, the partners pledge to have both CD-RW drives and discs available by March.
Because the standard is just being unveiled, no personal computer manufacturer has pledged to build systems that include a CD-RW drive -- not even the PC divisions of H-P and Sony. Dave Deane, a product manager in H-P's disc drive group, said one or more PC makers might announce their support for CD-RW at next month's Comdex computer show in Las Vegas.
Conventional CD-ROM drives add about $100 to $200 to the cost of a PC system, so the premium for CD-RW systems probably would be about $600 at first. Prices are expected to come down quickly and Rob Van Eijk, a marketing executive with Philips Key Modules in San Jose, said he expects CD-RW drives will cost less than $500 by the end of next year.
CD-RW drives will read existing CD-ROMs and be capable of recording CD-Recordable, or CD-R, discs. Blank CD-R discs are already on sale for $7 to $10 -- less than CD-RW discs will cost -- but can only be written on once. CD-ROM, CD-R and CD-RW discs all hold the same amount of data, about 650 megabytes -- almost 500 times more than the 1.4 megabyte capacity of a floppy disk.
For all the potential benefits of CD-RW, there are some drawbacks.
CD-RW discs will not work in today's CD-ROM drives, although future CD-ROM drives could be modified to read them.
What's more, there are less-expensive solutions available. The Zip drive from Iomega Corp., for example, costs $200 and stores 100 megabytes of data on rewritable discs that cost less than $20.
Robert Katzive, vice president of the market research firm Disk/Trend Inc. in Mountain View, said CD-RW is ``still a little on the expensive side.'' Mary Bourdon, a disk drive industry analyst with the San Jose research firm Dataquest Inc., said CD-RW will probably find only ``a niche market.''
A big marketing push for CD-RW could also confuse consumers. The partners backing CD-RW are also supporting DVD, which unofficially stands for Digital Video Disk, a new standard for disks that hold 4.5 gigabytes or more on a single disk. DVD-ROM drives are due early next year, although a rewritable DVD drive won't be ready until 1998 at the earliest.
DVD-ROM drives should be able to read CD-RW discs, but won't be able to record. That could leave PC buyers to choose between a CD-RW drive that can record but can't read DVD-ROMs or a DVD-ROM drive that accepts DVD disks but can't record. The CD-RW partners may be willing to support both technologies, at least for a year or two, in an effort to find out what buyers prefer.<<
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