Optical Revisited.

MARK: I'm just back from the Frozen North in Minneapolis attending an event hosted by Plasmon on new optical products.

HAL: It wasn't freezing in summer, I hope.

MARK: No, they got pretty hot about their new lines. You know they're about the last true believers in the 12-inch format, that they call TrueWORM.

HAL: And I wish them all the luck in the world. I agree that there's a market--and not just a replacement market--for TrueWORM. After all, CDs are true WORM, too. It's merely a difference in capacity.

MARK: And cost. What's your latest take on optical automation? Tape automation is going through the roof, growing at 25% CAGR per year. Where's optical?

HAL: There's no arguing with success. Optical's way behind. Developers dropped the ball in the 1990s. I wouldn't say that they "let" tape take the lead, but I do think that they failed to give enough attention to R&D. Optical should have kept pace or become even more attractive by comparison.

MARK: Was it basically a marketing shortfall, or a technological battle lost?

HAL: Optical lost the technology battle. They nearly doubled their areal densities, which sounds good, right? But meanwhile the tape makers were quadrupling capacity or, in some cases, advancing it by an order of magnitude.

MARK: You're generalizing a bit, there, Hal.

HAL: Yup! But the fact is: optical now lags behind tape.

MARK: But even in their less-than-optimum market position, there are still optical technologies that can compete for a share of the enterprise IT user's mind.

HAL: That would be DVD-RAM. It hasn't set the world on fire, because today's installed base of DVD-ROM drives can't read DVD-RAM disks. But as a network-attached storage solution, DVD-RAM is more attractive than MO and a lot cheaper than WORM, even Plasmon's TrueWORM.

MARK: Hal, that's not the first time I've heard you say that.

HAL: But I always encourage redundancy and backups!

MARK: Meet Hal Glatzer--the embodiment of the RAID solution! Are you striping or mirroring that line?

HAL: Oh, just copying it over.

MARK: While you're busy with high availability, tell me how you think DVD-RAM will impact the current generation of CD.

HAL: The "current" generation? Not at all. But it will squeeze the 1.3GB double capacity" CD format that Sony and Philips are proposing. By the time they can make a 1.3GB CD system available, the 4.7 GB/side DVD RAM drives will cost less than $300. And they can read all CD media too.

MARK: Has the DVD deadlock over copyright issues been settled yet?

HAL: No, although there are technical specs for inhibiting, if not preventing, unauthorized duplication. But I don't think individual copying is the real threat. Most people are satisfied with low-quality analog TV. They watch movies that they've recorded off-air onto videotape at the slowest speed. Where I see the piracy threat coming is from people who can afford to buy a whole factory setup, and install it in a country with lax oversight. But I don't think there's any way to persuade the manufacturers of DVD production machinery to stop exporting it.

MARK: Does this situation impact DVD as a direct-attach IT storage solution?

HAL: I can't say that DVD-RAM is the "next big thing" in data storage across the board. Not because there's anything wrong with it, but because there are just too many other options, each with its own advantages.

MARK: Of course, since last Comdex, you've been laboring in other vineyards: you haven't been focusing exclusively on mass storage technology.

HAL: Yes. I hinted at what I was doing, in a column I wrote a few months ago--the one about obscure and even obsolete data storage devices that are the state-of-the-art in audio recording.

MARK: I know you're a musician, but did you cut a record?

HAL: In a way. I've produced an original murder mystery on cassette tape, called "Too Dead to Swing".

MARK: Hal, despite your enthusiasm for optical, you are living proof that tape isn't dead. How do our readers find out more bout "Too Dead To Swing"?

HAL: They can visit the web site at www.toodeadtoswing.com, or email me at [e-mail].

MARK: And to ask about all these technologies from an IT perspective, email me at [e-mail].