Maxtor targets set-top market

Hard drive vendor Maxtor is set to enter the consumer electronics market with its first offering as an approved storage supplier to WebTV Networks, a subsidiary of Microsoft.

Hard drive vendor Maxtor is set to enter the consumer electronics market with its first offering as an approved storage supplier to WebTV Networks, a subsidiary of Microsoft.

Maxtor's new DiamondMax 60Gb hard drive will be featured in the Microsoft UltimateTV service as part of its RCA DirecTV system. The company moved outside its traditional hard drive base once before to launch an entry-level line of PCs, but not out of its traditional PC market, until now.

Paul McCabe, senior director of partner management at WebTV Networks, said: "Our goal is to partner market leaders. Our reputation for timely delivery of quality and performance products makes it a great fit for our WebTV services."

WebTV is the latest step towards convergence, integrating digital video recording with satellite programming, interactive TV and the internet. Ted Deffenbaugh, consumer electronics vice-president at Maxtor, said: "We intend to be a top contender in the application of hard drives in television and satellite services."

Analyst IDC is projecting hard drive sales in the set-top market at 24 million units by 2004.

Maxtor rival VIA Technologies has joined Intel by supporting the new ATA-100 hard disk drive standard with its South Bridge chipsets. The ATA-100 open standard, developed by Quantum, increases the burst data transfer rate of hard drives to a maximum 100Mb per second.

Products based on ATA-100 are set to ship by the end of the third quarter.