IBM’s mid-range disk drive problems continue, and there are reports that the company is now quoting delivery delays of up to six months on the new 9336 – the company is desperately trying to persuade users to accept 9332s or 9335s instead while it tries to catch up with the demand (CI No 1,645). IBM UK has confirmed to Electronic News that the Havant-based manufacturing plant stopped work between February 12 and March 14 because of problems with bought-in components for the 5.25 857Mb drives. Limited production has now been resumed, but full volumes are not expected for at least another month, and IBM says that demand is unlikely to be met until the third quarter. The situation is being made worse by the company’s recommendation that customers use the 9335 until the 9336 is available. This is because the 9335 has proved unreliable in many situations, and although IBM says that the vibration problem has been resolved, Nili Young of the Westport, Connecticut-based Meta Group maintains that the vibration is due to arcane 14 disks, rather than to isolated maintenance difficulties (CI No 1,641). However Ms Young acknowledges that she has received only three complaints about the 9336 and those have been users of beta machines rather than from production units customers. Several plug-compatible manufacturers are now ready to deliver their own versions of the array, and some analysts believe they may win orders that would have gone to IBM. Memorex Telex International NV, EMC Corp and IML Systems Inc will launch their products by late summer, and EMC is claiming that the combination of unreliability and delays could lead to IBM losing as much as 10% market share. IBM won’t specify which components were to blame for the 9336 delays, but Electronic News suggests that the company received a faulty batch of components from an outside supplier, and although the faults were discovered during testing, it took another month before a new batch could be delivered. The upshot of which, claims International Data Corp, is that IBM has only shipped about half its planned volume of 9336 disk-drives.
