Plextor Update

The Japanese website impress.co.jp is reporting that while Plextor will indeed be reducing its’ optical drive business and focusing primarily on professional use equipment, they will still continue to sell a small amount of products on the retail market.

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. Using Google translator, the article also states, “in the future, the product development which centers one for business is done, but it made the schedule which keeps selling also the [riteru] product”.

[plextorimage]More discussion can be found over at CDFreaks, where Koba is reporting that the following Plextor drives are now out of production:PX-751A, PX-755A, PX-755SA, PX-760A, PX-760SA, PX-750A

We have also been informed that Plextor’s direct shop in Japan has quickly sold out of most ODD products today. At this point the only products left available at plextor-direct.jp are the PX-608CU and the PlexEraser.

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.

About Wes Novack

Wesley Novack is a Technologist working in the software industry, with extensive experience building and managing highly available applications, services, and systems in the public cloud. He has a breadth of experience in online publishing, the consumer electronics industry, and building internet communities. Wes enjoys hanging with his family, skateboarding, hiking, the vegan lifestyle, and a good cup of tea. You can find him on Twitter @WesleyTech.

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