History 2000: IBM Sells Only 100,000 Microdrive One-Inch HDDs

“We’ve sold more than 100,000 Microdrives,” confirmed Henri Richard, IBM VP, who along with responsibility for WW channels and e-channels for the Information Technology Group, is now also in charge of WW sales of the one-inch 340MB Microdrive.

This figure, revealed during CeBIT, is actually not that impressive, even if the drive has only been available since July 1999.

Richard also indicated that roughly 80% of sales are destined for digital cameras, 20% for various products such as GPS, printers and the industrial medical sector. IBM is also targeting small Windows CE computers and MP3 Walkmans. A trivia lesson: Richard informed us that at USA Today, photographers each have 15 of the Microdrives, on average.

In 2H00, IBM should release a new model, still with one platter, but with more than 2x the capacity.

This article is an abstract of news published on issue 146 on March 2000 from the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter.

Note: In 2003, Hitachi, after acquiring the HDD division of IBM, manufactured a Microdrive at 4GB, in 2005 at 6GB, and then in 2006 at 8GB, before stopping the production of this product at the end of 2007.