History (1993): Optical Storage Corp. Closes

Sumimoto Chemical Co., Sumimoto Metal Minning Co. and Daicel Chemical Industries will withdraw from their optical disk joint venture by disbanding Optical Storage Corp. (Tokyo, Japan).

OSC was established in 1990 with start-up capital of ¥5 billion for development, production and marketing of optical disks.

Production will cease in the fall of 1993, and the company with 80 employees will be dissolved by the end of 1993.

Sales of the venture had been projected to reach ¥10 billion by the end of 1995.

Curiously, OSC is stopping when the optical disk market is just taking off. It has accumulated lost to a ¥2.5 billion debt while sales this far have just been enough to barely break even.

This article is an abstract of news published on the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter on issue ≠60, published on January 1993.