Chapter 377 The market is cold

Author: quiet thoughts

Chapter 377 The market is cold

It has been almost half a year since the release of the CD-ROM Blue Book.

During that period, three electronic technology companies, led by Hongchuan Electric, Sony, and Philips, were all stepping up their efforts in the optical drive field.

But there is no doubt that as the inventor, Hongchuan Electric is the fastest.

After several months of polishing, the originally very simple optical drive system has now turned into a boxy black box.

"How is the service life? Can it meet the design requirements?"

Hong Chuanfeng picked up the external version of the optical drive in front of her and turned it over. It felt very weighty.

“Because the first shipment is a business-type optical drive, they have chosen the most reliable materials for both the motor and the laser head.

According to external tests, it is estimated that there will be no problem after 5 years of use.”

Nakajima Heitaro turned on the computer and connected a black external optical drive to the host computer.

With a soft beep, a green indicator light on the optical drive lights up.

Soon as the system was operating, I found the CDD symbol representing the optical drive disk.

Entering the outside, documents are densely arranged in front of you.

"Very good." Hongchuan Feng nodded with satisfaction. It was much smoother than the first operation.

For the identification of optical drives, Microsoft has also added corresponding functions to the system.

Led by IBM and promoted by Sony, Philips, and Hongchuan Electric, Microsoft quickly followed up on the development of related systems and software.

I have to say that it is a professional software company. The experience after Microsoft updated the system is much better than Fujitsu's half-baked efforts.

Although the current DOS system is still very crude, there is no problem if you can use the basic optical drive.

"Has the supply from Bei Mi started?"

Hong Chuanfeng put the external optical drive in his leg and began to care about the market situation on the other side of the ocean.

"Hai, the freighter has been sailing for two weeks."

That question was answered by Yakumo Sasaki, who is in charge of warehousing. He is now in charge of the logistics scheduling of all Hongkawa Electric products.

For large-volume transoceanic transportation, freighters have the lowest cost.

Of course, the time difference will be longer. It takes about a month to travel from Neon to Beimi.

According to the first batch of products in the original agreement, Hongchuan Electric will first provide a total of 10,000 sets of external optical drives.

Among them, there are 6,000 sets of 2x speed optical drives and 4,000 sets of 4x speed optical drives.

And all of those 10,000 optical drives have specially designed business versions.

As for the optical drive that is intended for ordinary users, does IBM intend to produce a thousand sets first to test the waters?

After thinking about this, Hongchuan Electric also agreed to IBM's request.

After all, it is Party A, and Hongchuan Electric will produce as many products as it orders.

In the field of computers in North America, IBM is the only one who has the say, and Hongchuan Electric Co., Ltd. is unlikely to be able to promote the popularization of optical drives on its own.

In addition to Bu Nao’s shipments to North America, in Neon’s local market, Hongchuan Electric’s external optical drives are also on the market.

The black box, which is 15 centimeters long and 5 centimeters high, seems to be about the same size as a floppy drive.

Regarding optical drives, Neon Media has reported countless times.

So the moment it is placed on the counter, it is destined to attract the public's attention.

On the day I was in the market, some people who had money in their pockets were curious and bought an external optical drive to try it out.

Because the price of optical drives is high, even the cheapest optical drive in Neon costs US$159, which translates into nearly 40,000 yuan per month.

Therefore, customers who purchase a CD-ROM drive will receive a few CDs included.

There are some literary works that have been suppressed in advance, as well as comics that have been serialized. They all come from the copyright library of Tokuma Shoten.

In order to enrich the distribution content of CD-ROM and prevent users from buying optical drives and having nowhere to use them, Hongkawa Electric simply compressed some serialized books and periodicals from Tokuma Shoten into CDs.

Although today's computers do not have DOS systems, pictures can also be viewed through specific software.

As a result, novels and comics became the first users of CD-ROM and optical drive platforms.

The idea of ​​Buluo Hongchuan Electric Co., Ltd. is good, but the feedback from users after actual experience is not very good.

“Although Qun Maoxun is very convenient to use, the novels and comics on the CD are very rich, and they are even thoughtfully indexed.

But if you stare at the computer screen for a long time, your eyes will be too tired.

Maybe when he picked up the magazine next to him and relaxed, he realized why not just buy the physical book?"

"He doesn't like reading novels and comics. After buying a CD-ROM drive, he didn't know what to do."

"The machines are expensive and have a lot of storage capacity, but they are useless."

"A 700MB optical disc is hundreds of times larger than his floppy disk, but he can just look at it but not control it."

The reports in the newspapers looked dazzling and made Hongchuan Feng frown.

As high-profile as the reports on optical drives were at the beginning, the skepticism is now intense.

At this moment, he also somewhat understood why IBM insisted on using optical drives on mainframes and compatible computers first.

After all, we have just entered 1983, and the computer's DOS system does not support video playback.

This greatly limits the choice of content that can be recorded on CD-ROM, and current computers simply do not support those complex formats.

The software based on this operating system is generally small, limited by the power of the CPU, and the files processed by the computer are also relatively small.

As for multimedia, which became popular in later generations and is inseparable from life, even the concept is not systematic at this time, and some research institutions have only put forward relevant ideas.

This results in the huge capacity of optical drives and CD-ROMs, which seem to be completely useless in today's computers.

Users cannot use it to enjoy music and movies, or store their own treasured materials.

The former is because the computer does not support it, and the latter is because the optical drive does not support it.

Therefore, today's optical drives and CD-ROMs are facing an embarrassing situation. They are very nice things, but they seem to be useless.

That was not the reason why users and the media raised doubts. After all, I blew it so loudly at first, but when I got my legs, I realized that it was not as good as I thought.

It doesn't matter if you say it's useless. Many companies have high praise for their optical drives.

Because they often have a large amount of data to store, the disk is too small to hold just a few files.

Mechanical hard drives are too expensive and bulky.

This has led to many companies retaining data storage rooms, with rows of file cabinets and dusty file bags, as a result of the widely used original storage methods.

But now that we have optical discs, it's different. A 12cm disc can hold the contents of 150,000 16-inch sheets of paper.

There is no doubt that this is great news for companies with large file storage needs. After IBM's Amway, many companies have expressed purchase intentions.

The business optical drives shipped to North America were basically installed on mainframes and business compatible computers.

Even for the pressing of CD-ROM discs, Hongchuan Electric has received orders from many companies.

After all, if you have a CD-ROM drive, you can fully use it by burning your own data to a CD.

All the data that needs to be burned will be pressed by Hongchuan Electric's optical disc factory.

The same is true for Neon. The purchasers of optical drives are basically public institutions.

The optical disc pressing orders of those departments are basically divided between Sony and Hongchuan Electric.

As a brand-new technology, organizations with special needs are often the first to use it.

Although the demand for optical drives from ordinary users is not that strong, the shipment of business-type optical drives did bring a large profit to Hongchuan Electric.

Because of its high selling price, the shipment from Beimi alone brought a profit of US$6.7 million to Hongchuan Electric.

A two-speed optical drive costs $600, which is a very profitable $450 after all costs.

The price of a quad-speed optical drive is US$1,300, and its net profit is as high as US$1,000.

Is it really a huge profit? Even though the use of optical drives now has great limitations, the profit makes up for the lack of shipments.

The commercial application of optical drives has just started. Although it has good reviews in mainframe computers, the issue of feedback from ordinary users cannot be ignored.

"Their recordable disc format, when will it be resolved?"

Hongchuan Feng put the newspaper in Dong's lap and turned his attention to the people in the east.

At this moment, the conference room was filled with the decision-makers of Hongchuan Electric, including everyone from the manufacturing department to the design department.

Because optical drives don’t have a high reputation in the market, everyone’s expressions are not very good.

Hearing Hongkawa Kaede's question, Nakajima Heitaro was the first to answer.

"The CD-R format is jointly developed with Sony and Philips and is expected to be standardized and enter the commercial stage next year.
To be continued...