History 2001: Imation Halts Sales of SuperDisk FDDs

Imation had developed its 120MB SuperDisk floppy disk drive with USB interface primarily for the Apple market, which no longer offered FDDs on its PCs.

But the CD-R wave is currently wiping out floppies, be they traditional 1.4MB media, Zips or SuperDisks.

Imation has thus decided to cease its sales activities for the drive.

Mitsubishi had already ended production of its SuperDisk units, and Matsushita-Kotobuki Electronics Industries, now the only source for the drives it manufactured on behalf of Imation, will concentrate instead on slim line devices as well as on its new units which have the further capability of writing 32MB on the classic 1.4MB floppy.

It is conceivable that the fact that storing 32MB on a floppy could cost no more than a few cents will not really help matters for Imation, which manufactures, with Maxell, a much more costly 120MB diskette.

In our May 2000 issue, Steve Carter, GM, program manager for data storage and information management, Imation, asserted that: “SuperDisk is a product ahead of its time.“

It would be hard to take him seriously about that today.

SuperDisk technology, once known as Floptical, then LS-120, was conceived in 1988 by Insite Peripherals, subsequently acquired by OR Technology. Iomega also acquired a license from Insite in 1992, but never used it, eventually selling it in 1994 to 3M (which then became Imation).

Imation’s decision will probably prove a fatal blow to SuperDisk, since Matsushita/Panasonic, the sole remaining manufacturer of the drives, does not have Iomega’s wider market coverage. The Japanese firm, however, has nevertheless planned a double capacity version at 240MB for this year.

The market for high-capacity FDDs is probably reaching the end of its curve, hurt as it has been by the popularity of CD-Rs. The only real option left is Iomega’s Zip, sales of which are currently losing steam.

Imation does not intend to abandon the Apple back-up market entirely, however, since the company will continue to ship a 1.4MB USB FDD and a Travan NS-20 tape cartridge drive with Firewire interface (manufactured by Seagate Technology).

This article is an abstract of news published on issue 156 on January 2001 from the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter.