Castlewood Orb (Press 2 of 2)
transcap.com.my
Local firm to manufacture ORB drives
The Star, Tuesday, August 18, 1998 - PENANG, Castlewood Systems Inc. and Trans Capital Holding Bhs have jointly launched a removable disk drive using magneto- resistive(MR) head technology in Seberang Jaya near here. The ORB 2.2GB drive was designed by Castlewood and will manufactured at Seberang Jaya by Trans Capital Electronics Sdn Bhd for the worldwide market. According to chief executive officer Tan Say Choon, Trans Capital is the first Malaysian manufactureer to produce a complete removable cartridge disk drive. "To date, we have invested US$10 million in the plant and will steadily increase our investment according to our progress," he said.
Trans Capital 5 percent equity in Castlewood, with an option to take up an additional 5 percent. It acquired its stake in Castlewood for US$3mil last year. Tan said that the 25,000 sq ft manufacturing facility will start up its first month production with a target of 5,000 units. "We will continually ramp up production over time and will be able to make a maximum of 120,000 units per month by the end of this year," he added.
Castlewood president and chief executive officer Syed Iftikar said that the ORB removable cartridge disk drive will begin shipping to users in December. From next month onwards, the drive will be shipped out to American and Japanese OEMs including IBM, Compaq, NEC, Vobis, Acer, Dell, NEC, Sony Sanyo, Aiwa and Gateway. "Our research has shown we have a demand over 10 million drives a year for both OEM and retail channels, valued at US$2bil," Syed said, adding that the product is targeted at the PC, NC(network computer), VCR and srt-top box markets. he also claimed that the sub US$1,000 low cost computers for the consumer market will prompt the need for bigger storage space.
Owing to the great demand, the production rollout rate of 120,000 units a month was not enough and that the company will sign on one other Malaysian manufacturing company as a second source, said Syed. "The second sub-contractor here is an Aiwa affiliated company and we are also looking at manufacturing ar Sanyo in Japan to fulfill demand," he said. Castlewood is also negotiating licensing agreements with Sony and Acer for additional products. "They will include the drive in their products. Sanyo wil be the first to introduct a VCR with a digital removable hard disk drive to consumers by Christmas time, " he said.
At Comdex 97, Sanyo showcased its first implementation of the ORB drive in a HDR-1 hard drive recorder, which will essentially be the first VCR using a disk drive instead of a VHS tape as a recording facility. The HDR-1, capable of PC remote controlling, boasts of JPEG compression rate of 30 field/sec and provides more than 35 minutes worth of recording time. Syed also said that Aiwa will introduce its removable hard disk drive in its digital home systems shortly after Sanyo. "The PC makers will offer our product as an option so consumers have a choice either to buy a high density floppy drive or a removable hard drive," he said.
The company is also in talks with movie studios such as Disney, Warner and Time to use ORB as the preferred medium of storage. The ORB drive will also be distributed and sold through retailers, mail order, commercial distribution, value-added resellers and system integrators. Castlewood is a privately-held California-based founded by Syed Iftikar in September 1996. He is also the founder of SyQest Technology and cofounder of Seagate Technology, where he invented the first 5-inch hard drive. Castlewood is planning to be listed on Nasdaq a year from now.
Regards - Dale |
