HP, ARCHOS, and Microsolutions take their CD-RW show on the Road - Hewlett-Packard, Archos S.A., compact disc rewriter

Emedia Professional, May, 1999 by Peter Schworm

For mobile professionals and devoted gamesters, portable CD-ROM drives--at speeds of up to 32X and weights of less than 20 ounces--have become a prevalent pleasure. But what about CD-R and CD-RW? After all, the rapid growth of portable PCs brings additional risk for data loss, and a portable drive to back up your laptop can be a comforting traveling companion. Thanks to a recent spate of portable CD-RW drives, data-intensive applications such as electronic publishing and archiving can now be done from the notebook.

Designed for PC laptops through a PCMCIA connection, Hewlett-Packard's latest CD-RW product, the M820e, is a mobile, external SCSI 4X/4X/20X CD-RW drive listed at $599. With a width of 5 inches, length of 6.5 inches, and height of less than an inch, it easily fits in the palm of your hand. "It's extremely streamlined and weighs less than a pound. You can fit it in your pocket," says HP's Vinny DeVito, a business developer in HP's CD-RW division. "It's dynamite for the mobile professional."

The drive--which requires a minimum 133MHz processor and 32MB RAM--will be released July I bundled with Adaptec's DirectCD and Easy CD Creator. One drawback: it doesn't come with a battery, and thus requires two outlets to operate. While HP sees a good deal of growth potential in the portable market, it's not planning to introduce internal portable or Apple-compatible drives any time soon.

On April 15, the French company ARCHOS introduced a MiniCDRW to its line of portable peripherals for both PC and Mac notebooks (available with interchangeable USB and PC card cables). The MiniCDRW is approximately the size of a portable CD player, measuring 6.3 x 5.1 x 1.2 inches and weighing 17.6 ounces. The MiniCDRW reads at 24X and writes and rewrites at up to 4X--thus recording a 650MB CD-RW or CD-R disc in under 20 minutes. "We were successful in overcoming several challenges with the MiniCDRW, such as incorporating portability and versatility into a high-performance product," said Henri Crohas, general manager of ARCHOS. The MiniCDRW is expected to be available in two models, priced at $349 and $450 respectively.

Although not as streamlined as other portable drives, Micro Solutions' $399 backpack cd-rewriter is a removable plug-and-play CD-RW drive offering 4X performance on virtually any Pentium-based PC with a standard EPP/ECP port. "The backpack cd-rewriter puts CD publishing and authoring capabilities in the hands of both office and home users," says Jack Moloney, executive vice president and general manager of Micro Solutions. The company previously offered a 4X CD-RW drive that required a Pentium II 300MHz or faster host computer.

The future of portable CD-R and RW stands in flux. Some industry analysts say portable CD-R drives are merely convenient niche products, while others see a virtually limitless market for cheap, compatible, high-performance recordable devices.

Indeed, some say the breakthrough will come only when economies of scale make room for internal portable models. Sony Electronics' Robert DeMoulin confirms that Sony sells portable PCs with CD-RW drives built-in over in Japan. He adds that Sony has been reluctant to try similar products stateside because the Japanese market has a greater hunger for ancillary "gadgets" than U.S. and European users. Whether DeMoulin's observation will be borne out in the market and portable CD-R and RW drives will be perceived as superfluous gadgetry or instead become a leading contender for handling the removable storage needs of the traveling professional remains to be seen.

(ARCHOS S.A., Z.A. Les Godets, 37, Rue des Petits, Ruisseaux, 91730 Verrieres-6-Buisson, France; 33 1 60 13 90 49; Fax 33 1 60 13 99 18; http://www.archos.com. Hewlett-Packard Company, 800 South Taft Avenue, Loveland, CO 80537; 800/826-4111, 970/679-5227; Fax 970/679-5933; http://www.hp.com. Micro Solutions, Inc., 132 West Lincoln Highway, DeKalb, IL 60115; 800/890-7227, 815/756-3411; Fax 815/756-2928; http://www.micro-solutions.com)