Back in the saddle with homegrown rewritable; will Apple buy it?

When IBM Corp. recently unveiled its latest PS/2s (the 20-MHz 386SX-based Models 35, 40 and 57, all of which are being positioned as OS/2 2.0 platforms), it also announced the availability of a new rewritable optical drive.

Part of the Apple deal? What wasn’t said in the public announcement was that IBM plans to aggressively pursue the third-party market and will retail the drive to all comers. Out of the chute, it will be available to anyone whose computer has an ANSI-compliant SCSI interface.

Although IBM refused to confirm any deals in the works, one possibility that comes to mind in light of recent reports in the trade press (and did not meet with a denial when we mentioned it to IBM) is some sort of agreement with Apple Computer.

An IBM insider said that Apple is “very interested in this format” and may decide to source the drive for inclusion in future versions of the Mac.

A SCSI with XT speed. Available now, the new drive is a 3.5-inch SCSI device capable of storing up to 128 MB of data. The drive accepts either a single-sided removable magneto-optical cartridge (the read-write variety) or a read-only cartridge. It supports data transfer rates of 4.3 MB per second and sports a 66-millisecond average seek time.

Although this is only as fast as an XT-type disk drive, IBM expects it to find widespread usage in a variety of applications requiring high-capacity removable media, such as archiving, image storage and multimedia.

The drive adheres to the ANSI SCSI X3.131-1986 standard and can be installed in a variety of PS/2s, using one of two IBM SCSI host adapters. The drive lists for $1,795, and discs will be available for $70 a pop, or $63 each in a 5-pack (such a deal). In addition, a $29 installation kit is required for certain models of PS/2s.

Homegrown. At first blush, news of an IBM-supplied 3.5-inch rewritable optical drive might appear to be no great shakes, since it is undoubtedly just a repackaged version of a drive supplied by some Japanese drive manufacturer, right?

Wrong. IBM took pains to point out that the drive is 100-percent IBM designed and manufactured. With it, IBM is seeking to “get back into the manufacturing business” and “re-establish its leadership position” there. Although the 3.5-inch format isn’t yet a standard, IBM believes it is early enough into the market–and still a sufficiently influential player–to make it one.

In this light, a deal with Apple (and perhaps one or more of the leading clone makers) is even more important, since it would all but assure that the industry would sit up and take notice. IBM stressed that it plans to work with standards committees wherever possible to help establish the 3.5-inch format as a standard, but it has also learned the hard way that most standards are set by the market, not by standards-making bodies. Hence the aggressive pursuit of third-party deals.

‘Born-again’ marketing. With this announcement, IBM also takes another step along the road it set out on a year or so ago to become a “born-again” customer-driven marketing company. Gone are the days when IBM could announce a proprietary new technology and expect the market to beat a path meekly to its door.

Like most other companies facing today’s slow economy for computer-related equipment, IBM has to pay homage to the goddess of Open Computing, embracing industry standards–such as PostScript, SCSI and even the classic AT bus–like everyone else. IBM hopes to get back into the saddle again with this product and help set some standards for a change. It may well succeed.

Craig Cline