Optiarc hails first Blu-ray burner
Joint venture firm claims burner will lift resellers' fortunes
Sony NEC Optiarc, the joint venture between Sony and NEC formed last year, has unveiled its first Blu-ray burner for PCs, which it has claimed will give resellers a healthy margin.
Thomas Nedder, managing director of Optiarc Europe, told CRN: “Our Blu-ray burner is 20 times more than the price of a normal DVD burner so it is an attractive product for a reseller to sell.”
Optiarc’s BD-M100A burns single and dual layer Blu-ray DVDs at up to 8x speed and CDs at up to 24x speed. It also has a storage capacity of 50GB.
Nedder was not concerned if the format battle between Blu-ray and HD DVD swung in favour of HD DVD.
“Through the joining of NEC and Sony’s optical storage businesses we can actually manufacture both Blu-ray and HD DVD products,” he said. “However, at the moment, we are being asked for Blu-ray burners from customers, which is what we’re focusing on.”
Darren Capon, product manager at distributor VIP Computers, said: “We will stock the new Blu-ray burner,
but will probably take orders on a back -to-back basis because we’re unsure how customers will react to the high price-point.”