Behind Sony Corp’s plan to increase output of 3.5 floppy drives to 500,000 from 300,000 (CI No 837) is the desire to improve its share of the rapidly-growing market – in a product it pioneered and succeeded in establishing as a standard: despite the soaraway yen, it plans to push the drives on the export market, initially pushing the 1Mb and 2Mb capacities; unlike other manufacturers such as Mitsubishi Electric and Matsushita Communications, which are are considering manufacture off-shore in south-east Asia, Sony has a strong base in Japan with scope for further manufacturing cost reductions.