Sony Finally Kills 3.5" Floppy Drive, But Shipped 12 Million In 2009!
Not long ago, the very last VHS tape was produced. It was the end of an
era, for sure. Today, another era is ending, and it's one that we can't
believe took this long to finally die. The floppy disc (the 3.5" one,
not the ancient 5.25" one) has finally seen its natural end, years and
years after they were initially introduced. It's funny to think that
1.44MB on a single disc used to be enough to hold a portfolio's worth
of documents, and now some .txt files would even be too large to fit on
that tiny sliver of space.
According to a report stemming from Asia, Sony will kill sales of the 3.5" floppy at the end of this fiscal year, and amazingly, the company currently holds a 70% market share of the entire floppy disc market. After March 2011, no more Sony floppies will be produced, and we suspect that it'll be nearly impossible to find them elsewhere.
The reason for the death is obvious: widespread use of large USB Flash drives, not to mention the inexpensive DVD blanks, etc. that are now everywhere. Sony initially started this market back in 1981, and when it dies in March 2011, it will have lived an amazing 20 full years. In today's world of rapid technological advancement, that's an eternity. Shipments peaked in 2002 with 47 million of them being sent out, and somehow, 12 million were shipped in 2009. We can't recall the last time we saw a box of floppy discs on store shelves, so we seriously have no idea where those millions went.
If you, or someone you know, still uses a floppy, more power to them. But you better stock up now, because your window to buy one is closing rapidly.
According to a report stemming from Asia, Sony will kill sales of the 3.5" floppy at the end of this fiscal year, and amazingly, the company currently holds a 70% market share of the entire floppy disc market. After March 2011, no more Sony floppies will be produced, and we suspect that it'll be nearly impossible to find them elsewhere.
The reason for the death is obvious: widespread use of large USB Flash drives, not to mention the inexpensive DVD blanks, etc. that are now everywhere. Sony initially started this market back in 1981, and when it dies in March 2011, it will have lived an amazing 20 full years. In today's world of rapid technological advancement, that's an eternity. Shipments peaked in 2002 with 47 million of them being sent out, and somehow, 12 million were shipped in 2009. We can't recall the last time we saw a box of floppy discs on store shelves, so we seriously have no idea where those millions went.
If you, or someone you know, still uses a floppy, more power to them. But you better stock up now, because your window to buy one is closing rapidly.
