Fully recovered from the sudden termination of that OEM contract with IBM – it’s believed to have another IBM contract, for 3.5 disks, now – Longmont, Colarado-based disk drive manufacturer MiniScribe Corp has decided to launch a full-scale attack on the European market. The $688m-a-year company, which already has a small base in Frankfurt, has now established headquarters in Newbury, Berkshire, and will shortly announce the opening of an office in Paris, bringing Europe-based staff numbers up to 25 by September. MiniScribe chiefs reckon that the European disk drive market is growing at an annual rate of between 20% to 25%, and is looking to double its current 10% stake – and drum up some $3.5m of additional European business – by this time next year. This expansion rationale – both geographical and financial – appears to centre upon two separate but related arguments: the nature in terms of size, capacity and performance – of the company’s product range; and its ability to meet the trends and demands emerging within the European disk drive marketplace. The company argues that overall, 3.5 disk drives now account for around 45% of the European market, while at a corporate level, 86% of all product orders received last year from European customers fell within the 3.5 to 5.25 area. Consequently, new products targeted for Europe will comprise two different 42Mb 28mS 3.5 models, a low-cost 63.3Mb 61mS access model and a 71.3Mb 22mS access model from the company’s half height 5.25 3000 range, and two 9000 Series 5.25 full height 16mS access drives, offering 338Mb and 347Mb capacities. Equally, so the company argues, all models are equipped in varying degrees to meet rapidly emerging Euro-trends: prices – already low in some instances – will continue to fall thanks to the fully-automated manufacturing lines established by the company in Singapore and Longmont – no plans to manufacture in Europe, while standard XT/AT, SCSI and ESDI standard interfaces embedded across the range, meet ease of integration criteria. MiniScribe also claims that its products are well eqipped to meet the higher capacity demands generated by the growth of networking, and that its drives are, quite simply, the most reliable in the market place. Future plans include the introduction of a 40Mb one third height 3.5 model, and the addition of a 760Mb drive to the top-end 9000 Series. It is also toying with the idea of expanding its branches throughout Europe’s major marketing centres, with Ireland, Scotland, France and West Berlin top of the proposed locations list – those may not sound like major centres of commerce, but they are places where much computer manufacturing is done, and computer manufacturers are of course MiniScribe’s principal customers.
