Sony Says Goodbye to Storage Icon, Floppy Disks

USB storage and the rise of better networking technology have made the floppy disk nothing more than a quaint coaster for the coffee table. Sony is ending production of floppy disks, saying the storage icon is now obsolete.

The 3.5-inch floppy disk’s long, slow, unceremonious march toward its death came to an end on Friday, when Sony announced it will end domestic sales of the disk by the end of the year, and end production of the disks by March 2011. Japan’s Mainichi Daily newspaper reported  Sony, which commands a 70 percent market share for the disks, sold 12 million floppy disks in fiscal 2009, down from 47 million disks in fiscal 2009. Sony first launched the 3.5-inch disks in 1981. Disk sales within Japan began in 1983.

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