With Taiwanese industry sources expecting a shorter than predicated demand for slim-type Blu-ray & HD DVD writers, the three top Japan-based suppliers of slim-type DVD writers, NEC, Hitachi-LG Data Storage and Matsushita Electric Industrial are expected to delay the release of OEM slim-type DVD writer orders to Taiwanese makers, according to DigiTimes. So far, when it comes to half-height IDE drives for desktop PCs, they have released OEM orders for DVD writers to its Taiwanese makers, with Quanta Storage and Lite-On IT being the main two.
Laptops equipped with Blu-ray or HD DVD writers are currently priced at ~US$4,000 to US$4,200 in the Taiwan market, which means it may take a year or two for the laptops' pricing to come down enough to increase their popular, particularly with just 2% to 3% of laptops expected to be shipped with a Blu-ray or HD DVD writer in 2007.
There is also a good chance consumers may hold off from buying a laptop with either format even for data storage until a hybrid writer capable of either writing or reading both formats comes becomes available.
