Sony to stop making floppy disks

Sony is to discontinue production of 3.5in floppy disks, as the ageing technology slides towards its inevitable demise.

The company called time on floppy disks outside of Japan back in March, and now a "lack of demand" has prompted Sony to claim it will cease production within its home market in 2011.

Given that Sony is the last major manufacturer of floppy disks, it seems the final days are dawning for the storage technology.

The 3.5in format arrived as a successor to the 5.25in floppy disk back in 1981, and swiftly became the most popular way of transferring files between computers.

However, as Zip drives, CDs, DVDs and USB sticks offered increased storage capacity at lower prices – not to mention the transfer of files over the internet – the floppy market quickly diminished. According to Sony, it shipped more than 47 million disks within Japan in 2000, compared to 8.5 million by 2009.

Apple dropped the floppy disk as early as 1998, when it released the first edition of the iMac, followed by Dell in 2003.

(taken from PC Pro – 26/04/2010 by Stuart Turton)