News

Pressured with competition by Korean and Taiwanese makers of optical disk drives for over five years, Sninano Kenshi, which is best known for its electronic equipment division and printing equipment division’s Plextor brand-name, has reportedly decided to exit the market of consumer CD and DVD optical disk drives (ODDs) to concentrate on other product lines.

Shinano Kenshi, according to the article at Shinmai.co.jp Japanese web-site, is planning a serious reorganization of its domestic business, including layoffs. As a part of the reorganization, the production of optical disk drives (ODDs) will be reduced to “10% of the peak production levels” and the company will concentrate its business on industrial equipment and the Plextalk digital sound recording playback equipment for blind, the article says.

While Plextor still produces very high quality optical disk drives, including CD, DVD and Blu-ray recorders for consumers, as well as some unique products like PlexEraser, its optical drives cost two to three times more compared to similar products by competitors in Europe, which has caused gradual decline of sales of the company. Higher price is a result of high-quality component usage, but end-users and original equipment manufacturers are looking forward value much more than they are looking forward exceptional quality.

In the recent years Plextor also started to offer external hard disk drives, wireless adapters for projectors and digital video converters. The destiny of these product lineups is unclear.

While it is clear that Plextor now has different product lines, it is obvious that the brand is known for quality optical disk drives, which means that further diversification can lead to brand-name fading away.

Plextor officials did not return on enquiries seeking for a comment.

Discussion

Comments currently: 10
Discussion started: 01/22/07 11:54:27 AM
Latest comment: 06/13/07 11:04:51 PM
Expand all threads | Collapse all threads

[1-8]

1. 
Good riddence. This is exactly what this coporate scumbag deserves for suing PxLinux and PxScan authors under DMCA[1], and make overpriced and underperforming products.

[1] http://www.alexander-noe.com/blog/index.php?2006/06/18/13-p xscan-pxview-again-fun-with-plextor
[Posted by: plexturd  | Date: 01/22/07 11:54:27 AM]

2. 
news update: no retreat, just downsize of the operations
[Posted by: cozappz  | Date: 01/22/07 12:40:07 PM]

3. 
I like Plextor drives, but I can't stand their pricing. No sweat off my back.

Maybe now someone will finally produce a decently priced slot loading drive.
[Posted by: Psimitry  | Date: 01/22/07 03:05:44 PM]
+ expand thread (1 answer)

4. 
Have used nothing but them for years. Hopefully they won't go altogether.
[Posted by: FXi  | Date: 01/22/07 06:51:01 PM]

5. 
My Plextor SATA DVD burner doesn't read half the disks (new, original software) I feed it. And it does lots of bad burns on lots of different media. I'm looking to replace it with a NEC or SAMSUNG SATA burner. After all, I'm not gonna pay 3x for something just as failure-prone as the rest. High quality components, yeah right.
[Posted by: Tom  | Date: 01/23/07 02:48:00 AM]

6. 
I used to buy Plextor optical drives, but the price was too much to bare.

I mainly use Pioneer or some other popular brand nowadays. Far more economical and does the job.
[Posted by: cw  | Date: 01/23/07 06:44:09 AM]

7. 
So now we see the real reason why their products have been in decline. I always heard how great their drives were, so I finallly bought one of their sata DVD burner drives. It died 18 months later, just when the warranty ran out. overpriced junk.
[Posted by: jackwipe  | Date: 01/23/07 09:51:57 AM]
+ expand thread (1 answer)

8. 
"worth a look, thanks"

www.mp4-converter.net/dvd-to-mp4/
[Posted by: joe11ee  | Date: 06/13/07 11:04:51 PM]

[1-8]

You must log in to add comments.

Forgot password? Registration

remember me



Related news

Latest News

Saturday, November 21, 2009

7:53 am | Cell Network Operators Set to Become Largest Mobile Internet Devices Sellers – Analysts. Mobile Network Operators to Gain Strength in Devices

Friday, November 20, 2009

10:11 pm | ATI Seeks Its Best to Ensure More Radeon HD 5-Series Supplies – Company. Additional Number of DirectX 11 Graphics Boards is Incoming

11:56 am | Fusion-io’s SSD Setup Reaches 1TB/s Aggregate Bandwidth. Fusion-io Gets Contracts from Government, Creates World’s Fastest SSD Setup

10:06 am | Notebook – the Most Desired Christmas Gift, Says CEA. Notebooks, Players and HDTVs Top Christmas Presents Wish List

9:11 am | Ebay Completes Skype Sell Off. Skype No Longer Belongs to Ebay