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Technology Stocks : Creative Labs (CREAF) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Savoirman who wrote (12416)	10/10/1998 11:12:00 AM
From: burn2learn	Respond to of 13925

a little dvd(from coolinfo page) Suppliers Rewrite Retail Plan for Rewritable DVD Conflicting formats, hardware shortages and nagging compatibility issues have converged to render rewritable DVD drives a relative no-show at retail this year. While suppliers such as Creative Labs and Panasonic are finding some success in the corporate market, they, along with a roster of competitors, indicate 1999 is the year they will begin to target the retail market. Typical are plans like those of supplier Hi-Val, which postponed its May 1998 launch until next year. Even DVD developer Toshiba has delayed until later this year a DVD-RAM option set for its BTO program, a company spokesman said. Toshiba originally planned to ship a DVD-RAM drive in some high-end PCs this summer. It now expects this transition to take place in 1999. "[The delay] is a good move, considering the drives are expensive and there are still some technology issues that are just being solved," said Robert Katzive, vice president of research firm Disk/Trend, Mountain View, Calif. The vendors cited a variety of issues that will keep them out of the market until next year. Marko Truppi, Panasonic's senior product specialist for DVD-RAM, pointed to the contentious relationship of the two rewritable formats as one reason for the delay. Panasonic is selling a DVD-RAM drive to the corporate market. The DVD Forum splintered into two camps in April 1997: DVD RW, led by Sony, Hewlett Packard and Philips, and DVD-RAM headed by Toshiba, Matsushita and Hitachi. The split occurred when vendors could not decide which rewritable format should become the industry standard. The two sides are still pursuing their own agendas, so a VHS/Betamax format war is likely, several vendors said. Compatibility problems also abound. Hi-Val indicated that the inability of current-generation DVD-ROM drives to read DVD-RAM discs forced Hi-Val to postpone its retail launch from May 1998 to February 1999, said Ed Meadows, Hi-Val's executive vice president. Compounding the problem is a huge shortage of DVD-RAM drive hardware because manufacturers are concentrating on building DVD-ROM drives, Meadows said. To top it off, most vendors said that with DVD video just gaining mass-market appeal and DVD-ROM starting to capture market share, the general consumer is not anxious for rewritable DVD. However, DVD-RAM is selling at a quick clip through VARs and the corporate sales departments of retailers such as CompUSA. "In the corporate channel, these are selling like crazy and we are having a hard time keeping that channel supplied," Meadows said. Creative Labs has been selling an upgrade kit on its Web site to businesses, and some consumers, for several months. "Sales have been going very well to businesses like software developers, and users looking for backup, secondary storage and video storage," said Panasonic's Truppi. DVD-RAM drives have a $599 average selling price for this market. Meadows said he thinks volume sales of DVD-RAM will take off in July 1999 when the next-generation DVD-ROM drives, the first to be compatible with DVD-RAM, are expected. These drives can read DVD-RAM discs, giving more people a reason to make a purchase, he said. Meadows added that another key to DVD-RAM's future at retail will be to get the drive's price below $500. Hewlett-Packard, a member of the Sony/Philips DVD RW clique, will launch its first DVD RW drive as an after-market upgrade kit for retail in mid-1999, a company spokeswoman said. HP will price the kit comparably with DVD-RAM, she said. Sony and Philips would not comment for this story. DVD RW holds 3GB of data, compared with DVD-RAM's 2.6GB. The formats are incompatible, but each can read CD-ROM, CD-R and DVD-ROM discs. (CRW)