IBM has sliced prices on its microdrives by as much as 32 percent. The microdrive’s new retail prices on the company’s Web site are US$379 for the 1GB model, $259 for the 512MB version, and $199 for the 340MB.
The microdrive supports portable handheld devices like digital cameras, PDAs and MP3 players. Its CompactFlash Type II standard format can also be accessed on laptops through PCMCIA cards and personal computers through card readers.
The microdrive, which weighs just over half an ounce and fits in the palm of your hand, supports multiple data types — including video, MP3, text, JPEG and voice. It can hold up 1,000 standard digital photographs, a thousand 200-page novels or nearly 18 hours of high-quality digital audio music, according to Michael Kuptz, microdrive business line manager, IBM Storage Technology Division.
“IBM has lowered the microdrive’s cost per megabyte by at least 50 percent every year since we introduced the product two years ago, and we believe this will help to spur the adoption of personal computing and entertainment devices,” Kuptz said in announcing the price cuts.