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Storage Market Outlook 2010 to 2015


Editor:- November 9, 2009 - this is a time of year when many readers are thinking about their storage marketing plans for 2010.

This planning process takes place against a background of long range assumptions which are more confusing than at any time since September 11, 2001.

I've collected together a few ideas which you might find helpful - even if you don't entirely agree with them - on the home page of StorageSearch.com


GE Talks About 500GB Opticals

NISKAYUNA, N.Y - April 27, 2009 - GE researchers have successfully demonstrated a micro-holographic storage material that can support 500GB in a standard DVD-size disk.

"GE's breakthrough is a huge step toward bringing our next generation holographic storage technology to the everyday consumer," said Brian Lawrence, who leads GE's Holographic Storage program. "Because GE's micro-holographic discs could essentially be read and played using similar optics to those found in standard Blu-ray players, our technology will pave the way for cost-effective, robust and reliable holographic drives that could be in every home."

Editor's comments:- researchers in the optical storage industry always sounds optimistic - like those in the cancer cure research market.

If you extrapolated from all the many times that cancer has been cured in rats - you could reasonable expect that the human race would be cured of this scourge by now. For decades a series of optical storage startups have been promising to deliver drives that match hard drive capacity at lower cost. I've got enough lists on this site already. So I'll spare you that one.


Aleratec Snips Cost of DVD Shredder

Chatsworth, CA - November 11, 2008 - Aleratec Inc. is now shipping the 2nd generation of its award winning compact DVD/CD Shredder with estimated retail price of $44.99.

"Sensitive data stored on CDs or DVDs can change frequently and disposing of old discs is a growing problem. With identity theft and corporate espionage increasing almost exponentially, just tossing them in the trash is more than dangerous," states Perry Solomon, Aleratec President and CEO. "An Aleratec DVD/CD Shredder makes destroying unwanted discs very easy. This light weight desktop unit shreds DVDs and CDs in seconds. With its auto start/stop feature all a customer needs to do is insert a disc and the shredder does the rest." ...Aleratec profile, Disk Sanitizers


New Service Takes Pain Out of Archiving Camcorder Hard Drives

Duluth, GA - November 3, 2008 - The Photo Archival Company has launched a new service to help users archive video trapped inside today's generation of no-tape camcorders that record to internal hard drive or flash memory.

The Photo Archival Company is able to preserve video footage directly from the customer's tapeless camcorder, external USB hard drive or flash memory to produce long-lasting DVDs or Blu-ray Discs. This solves the practical problem faced by users of high capacity camcorders that when the disk is full - they may be facing 40 to 120 hours of elapsed time to get the data off the camera and archived onto optical media.

"The recurring theme from a typical customer is that it is impractical for them to archive their digital footage first hand," said Charles Laughlin, President and founder of The Photo Archival Company. "For the average household, it can be a daunting task to spend the necessary time to tend to the successful creation of several DVDs or Blu-ray Discs just to continue filming." ...Photo Archival Company, Storage Services

Editor's comments:-
an alternative solution - if you don't want to waste days uploading data and burning DVDs yourself - is to train the starlets of your home movies to do this for you. Of course it works better if they are children - rather than dogs. (Unless Cesar has already done this in an episode I missed.)


Plasmon Restructures as New Company

Colorado Springs, Colo - October 23, 2008 - Newly formed Plasmon Holding LLC announced today that it has completed a management buyout and organisational restructuring of assets from Plasmon PLC, a trusted source of data archiving systems for over 20 years.

The transaction is intended to capitalise and reposition Plasmon over the long term. Under the restructuring, Plasmon Inc, formerly a US-based subsidiary to the UK company, will become the worldwide headquarters. The "new" Plasmon will offer its market leading archiving solutions and services in all global territories. ...Plasmon profile, gone away storage companies

HD DVD Retires Early.....................
Editor:- February 18, 2008 - industry rumors speculate that Toshiba may pull the plug on its HD DVD standard conceding to Blu-ray.

Blu Ray marketers will be rejoicing - but this media war is a side issue.

4 years ago in an article called Do CDs and DVDs Have a Long Term Future? I warned that the 20 year long run of removable consumer optical media which started with the CD - would come to an early end because internet downloads would eventually replace physical disks as the primary form of non broadcast movie distribution.

...Later:- next day in a press release commenting about this market shift Strategy Analytics opined...

Blu-ray Disc's victory over HD-DVD is the first battle in a much longer struggle. A major challenge lies ahead if the industry is to persuade hundreds of millions of DVD owners that they should switch to a completely new format. DVD players costing less than $100 can already offer HD-like video quality through upscaling techniques. The industry must now unite behind a major promotional campaign to push Blu-ray Disc as the preferred optical disc standard for the high definition age.

"Blu-ray Disc has passed its first real test by beating HD-DVD," says David Mercer, Principal Analyst at Strategy Analytics. "But a much bigger challenge now lies ahead if BD is to become as successful as DVD, and content owners, retailers and manufacturers must now demonstrate that they can work together to promote BD effectively."

Strategy Analytics predicts that cumulative sales of stand-alone Blu-ray Disc players excluding games consoles, PCs and other devices will reach more that 100 million units worldwide by 2012.


New Aleratec DVD/CD Disc Repair System

CHATSWORTH, Calif - August 27, 2007 - Aleratec, Inc. introduces its new DVD/CD Disc Repair CG that removes most light, medium, or heavy scratch damage from any DVD or CD.

The commercial grade disc repair system will repair most damaged discs in as quickly as 5 minutes. It includes 2 500ml bottles of finishing solution, repair pads, a 3 1/2" disc holder that makes fixing scratched 5" and 3 1/2" discs as easy as 1-2-3 and it is powered by a 1/4 HP motor. All you have to do is fill the unit with the Aleratec disc finishing solution, load your disc, turn the timer to desired time and let it run. Scratched discs come out in near new condition. ESP is $525. ...Aleratec profile, Storage Testers
Search StorageSearch.com
.
first published January 2007

Don't be Taken in by Blu Ray vs DVD Sophistry
News stories from vendors are a valuable source of market information - but they can sometimes create a misleading expectation of what could happen when they talk about predicting technology trends.

Vendors understandably talk up their market's growth prospects by citing optimistic analyst predictions. The reason is that most buyers are cautious and don't want to be the first to get burned by the bugs in a new technology. By suggesting that a new market will be very big, or will grow very fast, or has already reached a critical mass - vendors hope that buyers will be more confident and move faster along the new technology adoption curve.

I can tell you from decades of tracking such technology predictions that they often turn out to be as inaccurate as getting an opinion from your pet dog or cat. But until markets become established so that it's possible to track revenue or other historic data - comparing crystal ball images is as good as it gets - and makes for interesting editorial too.

Take the case of what's happening now in the consumer optical storage market.

A simple search on Google shows that many editors and analysts have bought into the market model currently being pushed by manufacturers who are recycling the "Betamax versus VHS" legend as an analog for the "High Definition DVD versus Blu Ray" market.

It's a seductive argument (for both sides) because it leads you down a tunnel in which you are left thinking that the future of buying and storing big globs of portable entertainment has to be one or the other. But that's not necessarily so.

Instead of the Betamax / VHS case study so beloved by commentators I'd like to call to your attention another old (and mostly forgotten) but more recent example - which is much closer to home - the battle of the Super Floppies.

What seemed at stake in the mid 1990s was:- what format would replace the 3.5" floppy drive? - an appendage which once adorned hundreds of millions of PCs.

Competing for attention were several incompatible formats by Iomega, Samsung and Sony. As we now know none of these royal claimants took possession of the floppy throne. Instead a republic was declared.

Most people found out they could exchange information much more conveniently using email instead of thin plastic wallets. And software publishers found that CDs were a more appropriate form of software distribution rather than boxed sets of floppies. The floppy drive slot was replaced by a CD and then later DVD drive - and not by a super floppy drive.

Fast forward to today's digital entertainment storage and distribution market (which is the setting for the Blu Ray vs HD DVD debates.

The simplest way to sell content is via the internet.

The simplest way to store hundreds of movies on a single storage device is on a single big hard disk.

I wrote an article saying something similar back in 2004 - and neither the appearance of holographic storage nor UDO etc has changed my view.

True - a lot of boxes will get sold with slots which are compatible with shiny looking coated plastic disks in the next few years - but there's a significant probability that the Super Optical market could soon go the way of the Super Floppies - and that neither Blu Ray nor HD DVD have a long future.

See also:- previous article:- the Future of High Speed Disk Drives for Servers
.
read article by Plasmon
Bare Media Exposed - Looking at the Contenders for Optical Media Archiving - article by Plasmon

Optical archiving has become a legally mandated storage technology in many markets. There are a lot of new optical media technologies and packaging formats to choose from. But which ones will stand the test of time in terms of data reliability and cost of ownership?

Plasmon, founded in 1987, has nearly 2 decades of experience as a systems and media supplier in the optical archiving industry. This article by Steve Tongish, Plasmon's Director of Marketing EMEA, looks at the critical factors for the new products now available and those emerging so you can assess which will work best for you. ... read the article, ...Plasmon profile, Optical Libraries
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