Rosemarie Christopher-Mason

CD-ROM, which stands for Compact Disc - Read Only Memory, is a relatively new form of computer storage media in which data equivalent to 500 megabytes or 1500 floppy discs can be stored on a single compact disc. The contents of "Read Only" disks can be viewed with a CD-ROM player, but that information cannot be altered. CD-ROMs advance audio compact disc technology from which they borrowed heavily, by incorporating a woven stream of digital image, video and text data.

CD-ROM technology consists of discs and drives or players. CD-ROM discs are thin, plastic, 12 centimeters (cm) or 4.72 inches in diameter, are manufactured by injection molding in large factories in mass quantities and adhere to standards which make them widely usable. In 1997 CD-ROM drives ranged in size from 1.8" for the PC Card, to from 2.5"-3" for notebook computers, to 5.25" drives for the personal computer and network server market. Rigid disk drive capacity (1997) ranged from 5.1 gigabytes for notebook computers, 8.4 gigabytes for desktop personal computers and 18.2 gigabytes for network servers.

"CD-ROM gave birth to the multimedia revolution by offering the capacity to store digitized audio, video, animation, and images." (Parker, D.J, & Starrett, R.A., 1996. CD-ROM Professional’s CD-Recordable Handbook. [http://www.onlineinc.com/pempress/cdr/ch 1.html]. 24 March 1998). The CD-ROM market began in the business and workstation sector with database distribution of catalogs and parts manuals as an alternative to paper distribution and with software distribution as an alternative to tape cartridges. CD-Recordable Handbook’s authors, Parker and Starrett state that information must meet the three criteria of large amounts,(up to 74 minutes of audio or 680 MB of data), be static in nature (in-frequent updates), and have wide distribution in order to be useful. In the early 90’s CD-ROM publishers took advantage of the economies provided by these criteria, plus the "inexpensive replication, low drive costs, and the legacy of audio standards " to launch the industry. (White Paper, "CD Technology: the standard for secondary storage," [http://www.sigcat.org/articles/white/smart1.htm]. 24 March 1998). Real growth for computer CD-ROMs began during the latter part of 1991 when low cost multimedia began to attract home users, and their use has exploded in the years since as software quantity and quality improved. According to Vectors, an on-line magazine, by 1993, 97% of all CD-ROM drives shipped were connected to personal computers.

The drive industry’s key strengths are that 1) most disk drive companies have management responsive to the rapidly evolving nature of the industry; 2) there is no one industry leader, 3) The industry rewards swift execution rather than large size, and 4) a flexible worldwide supplier infrastructure exists with hundreds of companies producing the disks, heads, semiconductors, motors, and numerous other components and equipment required to manufacture disk drives. (Porter, J., (1996, Sept/Oct). "Where Do We Go From Here?," [http://www.idema.org/insight/sepoct/porter.htm]. 24 March 1998). The software producers fall into categories by the markets they serve and there is overlap. While Microsoft publishes for the business, education, and home entertainment markets, others, like Megamedia Corporation, publish primarily for the entertainment (games) market and Silverplatter (supplier of databases), and Meridian Data (storage and access solutions) are geared toward business applications. A listing of Software Publishers is provided with this paper. The major drive producers include IBM, PHILIPS, ACER, DIAMOND, MITSUMI, PANASONIC, PLEXTOR, TOSHIBA, WEARNES, NEC, SAMSUNG, TEAC, and COMPAQ. While the costs to produce blank discs are minimal, ($.60 -$1.00), content publishers spend from a few thousand dollars to several hundred thousand dollars to produce one CD-ROM. Retail prices for CD-ROM software range from fifty dollars or less to several thousand dollars depending on the application. CD-ROM drives for personal computers are becoming less expensive with the cost in 1997 coming in under $500. 1997 Revenues generated by the drive industry were $34 billion with projections for $75 billion by the year 2000.

CD-ROM drives, as standard equipment in personal computers, provide a means for accessing a wide variety of information ranging from encyclopedias, living books, games, image and video libraries to product and sales presentations. For education, home entertainment and business, the reasons for the growing demand for CD-ROM drives and CD-ROM titles "are the recognition of CD-ROM as a durable, standardized, inexpensive, portable, large-capacity data storage and distribution medium." (Parker, D.J, & Starrett, R.A., 1996. CD-ROM Professional’s CD-Recordable Handbook. [http://www.onlineinc.com/pempress/cdr/ch 1.html]. 24 March 1998).

Economic forces driving the market are the low cost, efficiency, standardization, good durability/data integrity, ease of use, control, security, environmental-friendliness, "original document" legality, versatility, and an existing base of computers with built-in drives. CD-ROM’s ‘read-only’ aspects make it a poor storage medium outside publishing circumstances. The expanding personal computer market is driving the convergence of CD-ROM technology into interactive forms such as compact disc-interactive (CD-I), compact disc recordable (CD-R) and compact disc-recordable and writable (CD-RW) for write and rewrite capability for everyday business and home use. For increased storage capacity (4.7GB to 17GB) the most talked about of these new forms is "DVD--which first stood for digital video disk, then digital versatile disk, and now for no term at all." (PC Magazine: Poor, A., "DVD and CD-ROM: 21^st Century Storage," [wysiwyg: //102/http://search.zdnet.com/pcmag/features/cdrom/_open.htm]. 24 March 1998). Massive amounts of data with increasing amounts of interactive multimedia content will push DVD development particularly for the home entertainment (games) market. Long term beneficiaries will be schools as simulation software is becoming increasingly popular as an educational tool.

The Philips/Sony 1980’s initial research into CD-ROM technology, later advanced by the High Sierra Group, led to the original standardization of the CD-ROM data format (ISO9660). Subsequent extensions of this standard have allowed the addition of multimedia (MPC) applications and image storage (PhotoCD). Today drives support all these standards. (Vectors, "The Evolution of CD-ROM Technology," [http://www.dell.com/r&d/vectors/1/vect_cdm.htm]. February 1998). Electronic document standards now include SGML & HTML (text), PostScript and PDF (page description), Java & VRML (networks), BMP & TGA (imaging), RLE & JPEG (compression), Quicktime and MPEG (digital video) and MIDI (sound). (Cunningham, S., Rosebush, J. Electronic Publishing on CD ROM. [http://www.cd-webstore.com/books/ep/toc.html]. 24 March 1998). While standards have made it possible for CD-ROM technology to emerge as a multi-billion dollar industry, concerns for the protection of intellectual property rights remain as they were from its inception. The question of who owns the works of University professors, becomes increasingly pertinent as more of their works are published for distribution on CD-ROM. University ownership is more likely in the future so that wider use can be made of materials on campus, and so that the University can recover some of its investment, and receive a share of the profits if the materials are commercialized. Because software piracy costs over $11.2 billion per year world wide, software publishers support the World Intellectual Property Organization’s (WIPO) initiatives which strengthen international copyright law and assure effective copyright protection of the Internet.

Says James Porter of Disk/Trend, Inc. "the market is driven by applications as diverse as analysis of meteorological data, printing payroll checks, writing letters, browsing the Internet, editing television commercials, searching a data warehouse, or playing a computer game—plus a growing list of other applications, limited only by the human imagination." (Porter, J., (1996, Sept/Oct). "Where Do We Go From Here?," [http://www.idema.org/insight/sepoct/porter.htm]. 24 March 1998). The future is one of sustained growth because of continuous improvement in disk drive technology and the nonstop appetite of numerous markets for more data storage capacity. The history of the personal computer indicates that increasing computer usage and expanding applications will drive the development and usage of CD ROM technology. Early use emphasized its functional aspects as a storage medium. Future uses will be increasingly discretionary. Porter concludes that the disk drive industry’s rapid-cycle and competitive industry structure will result in the full exploitation of the technology and market potential for many years to come.

Links to rigid, flexible and optical disk drive manufacturers http://www.disktrend.com/lndrive.htm

http://www/pc/be.philips.com/osc/cd-rom/software/index.html

(Pozo, L.F., Glossary of CD-ROM and DVD Technologies. (Copyright, 1994-97). [http://www.sigcat.org/resource/gloss697.htm]. March 1998.

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