DVD Wesley Novack on 20 Jan 2007
Plextor exits CD DVD markets
![[PlextorLogo]](http://plextor.com/english/graphics/splash-logo.gif){kind=logo}
Shinanokenshi (the parent company of Plextor) has decided to exit the market for consumer CD and DVD products. The Plextor brand name will remain for industry use products and digital playback units for the visually impaired. Shinanokenshi has announced that their optical drive operations will be reduced to 10% of its peak capacity. These actions will also lead to reduced
Plextor entered the CD drive market in 1990 and has produced some of the top optical disk drives over the years. Their slogan “King of Quality” illustrated their goals for producing superior quality ODD products. Plextor drives and software have introduced innovative features and groundbreaking tools to the market over the years. Their custom software suite PlexTools introduced consumers to many new tools and utilities that were highly utilized by optical drive enthusiasts. The source article can be found at shimai.co.jp in Japanese.
A large computer chain in Japan also recently reported that Plextor has informed them that there will be no more shipments of the PX-755A or the PX-760A DVD burners. The drives should still be available in some retail stores, but once they sell out, they’re gone. Any Plextor fans out there that may want another drive should probably buy one right now, while they are still available from retail outlets.
Ian from CDRLabs.com also states, “we have not heard anything from Plextor’s American or European subsidiaries yet. It’s possible that they may remain in the optical drive business by rebadging drives or focusing on Blu-ray but at this point, we’ll have to wait and see.”
Update: After this news was published, their have been new developments and official press releases issued that indicate that Plextor will continue to sell optical disk drives. It looks like shinmai.co.jp jumped the gun when they announced that Plextor was “exiting” the consumer markets. The Plextor optical drive sales business will continue, but they will most likely be rebranding or rebadging drives that have been manufactured by other companies. Shinanokenshi has indicated that their engineers will focus on developing other products, which suggests that we might not see any more “Plextor original” optical disk drives, but only time will tell for sure.
Related Articles on WesleyTech.com:
Plextor DVD burners: made by LiteOn
Plextor USA still in the CD DVD game
Lite-On made Plextor Drives coming soon
Plextor Update
Blu-ray takes 96% of the Japanese market
Subscribe Full RSS
on 20 Jan 2007 at 12:51 pm 1.Dave said …
Bye bye Plextor!
on 20 Jan 2007 at 6:17 pm 2.MichaelS said …
You where the Best! Thank you for many good drives and excellent service.
on 21 Jan 2007 at 1:56 am 3.aviationwiz said …
I was the Plextor Fan(atic)!
What will I do!
on 21 Jan 2007 at 8:05 am 4.No more Plextor CD/DVD drives ... - TechEnclave said …
[…] No more Plextor CD/DVD drives … WesleyTech.com » Plextor exits CD DVD markets Quote: […]
on 21 Jan 2007 at 8:18 am 5.¤Ë¤ã¤ª¤Ç¤£¤ª - Æüµ : Plextor¤¬¥É¥é¥¤¥Ö»ö¶È¤ò½Ì¾®!? by nyaochi said …
[…] ¤³¤Î¿·Ê¹µ»ö¤Ë¤Ï¡¤¥³¥ó¥·¥å¡¼¥Þ¸þ¤±¤Î¥É¥é¥¤¥Ö¤ÎÀ½Â¤Ãæ»ß¤È¤Ï½ñ¤«¤ì¤Æ¤¤¤Þ¤»¤ó¤¬¡¤ WesleyTech.com ¤Ç¤Ï¡¤ ¥×¥ì¥¯¥¹¥¿¡¼¤Î¥É¥é¥¤¥Ö¤Ï½ªÎ»¤¹¤ë¤È¤Ï¤Ã¤¤ê½ñ¤«¤ì¤Æ¤¤¤Þ¤¹¡¥ ¤Þ¤¿¡¤¡ÖÆüËܤÎÂ絬ÌÏÈÎÇäŹ¤Ç¤Ï¡¤¤â¤¦PX-755A¤äPX-760A¤ÎÆþ²Ù¤¬Ìµ¤¯¡¤ºß¸Ë¸Â¤ê¤Ç¤¢¤ë¤³¤È¡×¤È¤â½ñ¤«¤ì¤Æ¤ª¤ê¡¤ ¥×¥ì¥¯¥¹¥¿¡¼¿®¼Ô¤Ï¤¹¤°¤Ë¤Ç¤â¥É¥é¥¤¥Ö¤òÇ㤤¤Ë¹Ô¤¯¤Ù¤¤Ç¤¢¤ë¤ÈÂ¥¤·¤Æ¤¤¤Þ¤¹ ¡ÊÆüËܤÎÂ絬ÌÏÈÎÇ䏤ÎÏä˴ؤ¹¤ë¾ðÊó¤Î¥Í¥¿¸µ¤Ï½ñ¤«¤ì¤Æ¤Ê¤«¤Ã¤¿¤Î¤Ç¡¤¤³¤Î¾ðÊó¤Î¿¿µ¶¤Ï³Îǧ¤Ç¤¤Þ¤»¤ó¡Ë¡¥ CDRLabs.com¤ÎIan»á¤Ë¤è¤ë¤È¡¤º£¤Î¤È¤³¤íPlextor American¤äPlextor Europe¤«¤éÏ¢Íí¤Ï¤Ê¤¤¤½¤¦¤Ç¡¤ ¾ðÊó¤ò³ÎǧÃæ¤È¤Î¤³¤È¤Ç¤¹¡¥ […]
on 21 Jan 2007 at 9:52 am 6.No more Plextor consumer drives - parent company pulls plug - ABXZone.com Forums said …
[…] Today, 09:52 AM More news here … WesleyTech.com » Plextor exits CD DVD markets AMD System specs: AMD 3200+ CPU Winchester CBBHD 0449 @ 280 HT speed (FSB) cpu multi 9x CPU cooling Zalman 7700Cu MSI K8N Neo4 SLI Platinum with 3.1 MSI bios MSI NX6600GT video card at stk speeds OCZ PowerStream 420 PSU 2 x 512mg OCZ EL 3200 Platnium Rev2 in slots 1 & 2 2.5,4,3,6 1T auto on vdimm Asus DVD-Rom E616P2 set as master on IDE 1 Maxtor 80 gig SATA pluged in on SATA #4 Viewsonic P75f+ monitor […]
on 21 Jan 2007 at 12:42 pm 7.Oracle said …
Oh~ This news really shocks me a lot!
I am a Plextor fan and have used its dirvers in SCSI and IDE interfaces from 2000. Plextor drivers are excellent in quality, compatibility, and support to any kind of discs. But I never think the day that Plextor exits because of costdown comes soonly. This impact makes me to collect more Plextor.
Say Goodbye to you, my dear Plextor.
on 21 Jan 2007 at 12:50 pm 8.Wesley Novack said …
A sad day for Plextor fan(atics) indeed.
I was never a big Plextor fan personally, but I do commend them on their innovations and their contributions towards the progression of optical storage technology. It is sad to see such an innovator exit the ODD field.
on 21 Jan 2007 at 2:32 pm 9.WesleyTech.com » HD DVD piracy article hits Digg said …
[…] As of this posting, my HD DVD piracy article has received a massive 1,632 Diggs, 184 comments on the Digg submission and over 70 responses on the article page itself. My Google AdSense panel reports that I received 27,198 page impressions over the last 3 days, but some of that is no doubt coming from my Plextor exits CD DVD markets article. Looking at these results, I would say that this was a pretty successful article. […]
on 21 Jan 2007 at 6:33 pm 10.Alberto GarcÃa said …
Good bad expensive
Like always…
on 22 Jan 2007 at 10:16 am 11.DrageMester said …
The following post at CDFreaks says that Plextor will not exit the ODD market but just downsize their ODD business:
http://club.cdfreaks.com/showpost.php?p=1673171&postcount=36
That post links to an article in Japanese:
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2007/0122/plextor.htm
Disclaimer: I can’t speak for the accuracy of this news.
on 22 Jan 2007 at 10:26 am 12.Wesley Novack said …
Thanks DrageMester.
on 22 Jan 2007 at 10:48 am 13.Not so fast Plextor » WesleyTech.com -> HD DVD, Blu-ray, CD info and more said …
[…] The article states that Plextor will continue to develop new products, but they will heavily downsize their ODD (Optical Disk Drive) business. This news is very similar to the previous news report that we wrote about, stating that the Plextor ODD business unit will be reduced to 10% of what it once had been. With such a reduction in their ODD business, I have to wonder if Plextor will continue to develop their own, innovative products or simply rebadge drives from other manufacturers? Rebadging or rebranding other manufacturers drives is the most likely scenario. More discussion can be found over at CDFreaks, where Koba is reporting that the following Plextor drives are now out of production: […]
on 23 Jan 2007 at 7:00 pm 14.Plextor USA still in the CD DVD game » WesleyTech.com -> HD DVD, Blu-ray, CD info and more said …
[…] A couple of days ago we wrote about a Japanese news report that detailed that the Plextor brand is exiting the CD DVD consumer markets. Afterwards, another Japanese newspaper reported a similar story, but this time it was stated that the ODD (Optical Disk Drive) business would only be downsized. Here is a quote from an official Plextor LLC press release. […]
on 26 Jan 2007 at 12:06 pm 15.Plextor DVD burners: made by LiteOn » WesleyTech.com -> HD DVD, Blu-ray, CD info and more said …
[…] After the recent news of Plextor scaling down optical disk drive manufacturing, we are now reading reports that LiteOn has received DVD burner orders from Plextor. This is exactly what I had speculated earlier, that Plextor will begin selling drives that are rebranded or rebadged from another manufacturer. Thanks to CDRLabs.com for posting this news also. […]