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http://www.insanely-great.com/news.php?id=1664
Yamaha Gets Out of the CDRW Business
By Remy Davison, Insanely Great Mac
February 8th 2003
Yahama gets burnt by the super-saturated CDRW market, opts to focus on home theatre.
Less than 12 months after releasing its market-leading F1 CDRW, Yamaha has announced
it will leave the PC CDRW business. The company will continue to supply CDRWs for
audio and music applications, CDR Info reports.
Yamaha will remain in the CDRW media business, and will continue to guarantee products
for the duration of the warranty period. However, CDRW sales will cease on March 31,
2003. The company expects to lose an estimated 1 billion yen as a result of
withdrawal. The mid-range market had been Yamaha's target, but the firm said in a
statement that the sector had shrunk "dramatically", and that it would be "imprudent"
to invest further. Yamaha had tried to expand its market share with the F1 and its
built-in disc engraving capabilities.
Yamaha cited the installation of CDRWs as original equipment in many PC desktops and
notebooks, particularly DVD-capable combo drives, as a factor behind its decision to
withdraw.
Rumors concerning Yamaha's possible withdrawal from the consumer CDRW business had
been circulating for some time. Yamaha designs and builds its own mechanisms and
supplies CDRWs to OEMs. Yamaha CDRWs are also generally considered the best or
second-best mechanisms in the business, next to Plextor.
It is not clear whether Yamaha will seek to enter the recordable DVD PC market. Yamaha
manufactures DVD+R/+RW video recorders, but has not entered the PC DVD recordable
sector, which is a major growth sector.
Analysis: Better get me one of those F1s before they all disappear. We suspect Yamaha
was a victim of the cheaper and cheaper LG, LiteOn and Benq recorders that are
flooding the market at next to nothing. As with PCs, people never seem to know that
you get what you pay for. It's a shame Yamaha don't make a DVD-R drive.
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