Optical drive manufacturers face crisis due to Intel Ultrabook concept

As Intel focuses on promoting the "Ultrabook" concept in laptops, the prospects of optical storage device manufacturers will face great uncertainty and even crisis, because the Ultrabook concept focuses on the thin and light design of notebook computers. Taking into account the cost, future products may not be reserved for optical drives.

Taiwan’s optical storage giant LITE-ON pointed out that it is difficult for the company to achieve its target of continuous growth of 20-30% in the third quarter of 2011. However, the company's shipments will still increase in comparison with the first and second quarters of the year as a result of the increase in sales of optical drives for the gaming consoles and light and thin portable optical drives.

In the face of the possible impact of the concept of Ultrabook, Lite said that it has planned to launch a corresponding product solution. However, due to discussions with customers, it is impossible to disclose relevant details.

The industry research and analysis department of Taiwan’s “Electronic Times” pointed out that when it comes to this matter, thin and light or portable notebook drives have become the main shipping products for each major optical drive manufacturer, while full-size optical drives face desktops that are already saturated. There is little room for future growth in the market, and shipments will also decline steadily. In the end, the optical drive may face the same fate as the floppy drive.

"Electronic Times" also believes that the Blu-ray drive will eventually lose its appeal to streaming media, and finally be replaced by an external hard drive just like an ordinary drive. However, according to information provided by current optical drive manufacturers, although shipments of Blu-ray drives have not achieved spurious growth, they are also gradually increasing quarterly.