The market for Digital Video Disk (DVD) technology will reach $35m this year but not overtake CD-ROM revenues until the year 2000, according to a study by analyst Dataquest Inc. DVD, sort of a next generation CD-ROM drive with applications for computers, games and video, will grow to $4.1bn in 2000, Dataquest predicted, compared to a decreasing $3.4bn for CD-ROM drives. Next year’s forecasted figures are $5.8bn for CD-ROM and $349m for DVD. Dataquest said the glut of DVD manufacturers could le ad to supply exceeding demand for DVD early on and cause initial jolts in that market. Things are running somewhat smoother, though, after firms Philips Electronics NV, Toshiba Corp, Matsushita Electrical Industrial Co and Sony Corp agreed to a joint licensing agreement two weeks ago, hopefully ending the war over competing DVD specifications (CI No 3,001).
