Thursday, October 3, 2002
DataPlay ready to close up shop
Posted by Ed Hansberry in "HARDWARE" @ 09:00 AM
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-960514.html
DataPlay, the darling of several computer shows last year, seems ready to call it quits. They have simply run out of cash. Two years ago a disk that held 500MB on a relatively cheap media the size of a quarter looked very appealing. Then some ugly truths came out. I talked about some of them in this article back in April.
"Major record labels have supported the format, and DataPlay expected to have discs featuring artists such as Britney Spears and N'Sync on the market by the end of this month." However, they have run out of money and can't seem to find the funding necessary to complete this phase of the business. Well, I am sorry to see any company close its doors because those employee's lives are affected, but I am glad potential investors haven't put more money into it. It could be the overall cloud over the technology sector, but my bet is investors see now that consumers simply will not put up with media that prevents them from making a copy of the product they purchased to listen to on different devices in the house or car.
If they can come up with a Digital Rights Management technology to lock content to a person and not a device, I'll sign up for it immediately. Until then, good riddance to this device and any that follow in its footsteps.
DataPlay, the darling of several computer shows last year, seems ready to call it quits. They have simply run out of cash. Two years ago a disk that held 500MB on a relatively cheap media the size of a quarter looked very appealing. Then some ugly truths came out. I talked about some of them in this article back in April.
"Major record labels have supported the format, and DataPlay expected to have discs featuring artists such as Britney Spears and N'Sync on the market by the end of this month." However, they have run out of money and can't seem to find the funding necessary to complete this phase of the business. Well, I am sorry to see any company close its doors because those employee's lives are affected, but I am glad potential investors haven't put more money into it. It could be the overall cloud over the technology sector, but my bet is investors see now that consumers simply will not put up with media that prevents them from making a copy of the product they purchased to listen to on different devices in the house or car.
If they can come up with a Digital Rights Management technology to lock content to a person and not a device, I'll sign up for it immediately. Until then, good riddance to this device and any that follow in its footsteps.
