US sales of Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Co’s latest additions to its PC Card range have been so disappointing that it has delayed the launch of the products in the UK. The 40Mb FlashDisk and 170Mb Hard Drive cards were launched in May in the US but at $1,950 and $600 respectively, have proved too costly for even the most data-intensive mobile computer user’s taste. Furthermore, given that since the beginning of the year, 3M hasn’t sold any of the earlier, lower capacity versions – FlashDisks of 1.8Mb, 2.5Mb, 5Mb, 10Mb and 20Mb capacity and a Hard Drive of 105Mb – 3M has decided to wait until the market picks up. When that might be is moot: Motorola Inc is so confident the market will be worth $8,000m by the end of the millennium that it’s investing heavily in a separate division to market products (CI No 2,702); and the Personal Computer Memory Card International Association that specifies the cards’ characteristics reckons that by 1997 88% of mobile personal computers will come equipped with PC Card slots. None of which is of much immediate comfort to 3M, which realises that as most notebook computers have their own 540Mb disk drive, paying nearly $2,000 for an extra 40Mb is not such an attractive option. The 40Mb FlashDisk is a Type II PC Card: it weighs 1.3 ounces, can tolerate 1,000Gs of shock and can withstand temperatures up to 60oC. It has access time of 2.5mS and consumes less than 5mW in sleep mode. The 170Mb Hard Drive card is made for the company by Sun Disk Co, to 3M’s specifications. It weighs 3ounces, incorporates a miniature hard disk drive and can tolerate 750Gs of shock. Its average seek time is 12mS and it consumes 25mW of power while in sleep mode, said the company. The earliest that customers in Western Europe can expect to see the products is now the spring of next year.
