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The Company currently expects that the impact of this business withdrawal on its corporate earnings will be immaterial. I guess I don't know much about this co

The Company currently expects that the impact of this business withdrawal on its corporate earnings will be immaterial. I guess I don't know much about this company - is this line shocking because they are such a prominent player, or is this line more of a "We really didn't do much in this area thus nothing will really change"?

wmf 11y ago
They claim to have been "the market leader for optical recording media", although I suspect they were not leading in volume or revenue. The blank disc market is basically gone, so it doesn't hurt them to get out of that business.
- ytch 11y ago
  Yeah, back to CD-R and DVD(+-)R era, TAIYO YUDEN is the representation of high quality disc. But the era of optical disc recording is gone, so it's a good decision to close blink disc business from business view. For normal people like me, just have a felling that another era is gone, like the floppy disk, PCI sound card, dial-up modem, CRT monitor, film camera and so on.
- cdr 11y ago
  They were pretty huge in volume at one point, mostly wholesale and rebranded. I don't know about now. 10-15 years ago you would always look for CD/DVD blank deals that were rebranded TY, and they were never difficult to find. When they got cheap enough I switched to just ordering large spindles of actual TY.
  - ytch 11y ago
    BTW, some of their products are under the brand "That's". This name is common around East Asia.
BossHogg 11y ago
There was a time when they were considered the top brand for consumer grade CD-Rs and DVD-Rs.
- PythonicAlpha 11y ago
  In quality, I don't know a brand, that is better. Others that where, have already given up (eg. Kodak). For example, I read that Sony once had good discs, but today are just re-branding discs of a much lower-quality brand.
  - qrmn 11y ago
    Indeed. Taiyo-Yuden were (still are, until December) one of the very best of the actual manufacturers of optical media: and they explicitly cite that optical media is losing its relevance as why they're ceasing operations in that market. I think this is of historical significance: it's a sea-change moment, with a leading manufacturer essentially conceding that optical media is no longer relevant and can never catch up, destined to fade into the past. Those of us of a certain vintage will remember a similar thing happening to floppy disks - and there are lessons to be learnt from that. Grab a few of these and carefully hang onto them, in the dark and away from heat sources - while you'll still be able to get them in a decade's time, it'll probably be impossible to find any new good-quality media then: so on the basis that you might want one when you least expect it, have a couple handy just in case. There's a certain melancholy here, having seen this technology through its entire lifecycle - but at least we don't have to worry about scratching USB mass storage devices. I think I have only one PC which still has an optical drive, and it's the one which still has a floppy drive. Maybe we'll replace spinning rust, and flash memory, too, in time.
hga 11y ago
They were certainly prominent in terms of quality CD-Rs; you could buy more expensive ones, but you didn't really need to.
desdiv 11y ago
According to their 2014 annual report[0], optical media made up for only 7% of their revenue. [0] http://www.yuden.co.jp/ut/ir/files/news/54376eba6d579.pdf http://www.yuden.co.jp/ut/ir/files/news/54376eba6d579.pdf
bhouston 11y ago
Their disks were sold under the brands names Fujifilm, maxwell, Sony, Panasonic, Plextor, Tdk and verBatim and that's brands.

wmf 11y ago

They claim to have been "the market leader for optical recording media", although I suspect they were not leading in volume or revenue. The blank disc market is basically gone, so it doesn't hurt them to get out of that business.

ytch 11y ago
Yeah, back to CD-R and DVD(+-)R era, TAIYO YUDEN is the representation of high quality disc. But the era of optical disc recording is gone, so it's a good decision to close blink disc business from business view. For normal people like me, just have a felling that another era is gone, like the floppy disk, PCI sound card, dial-up modem, CRT monitor, film camera and so on.
cdr 11y ago
They were pretty huge in volume at one point, mostly wholesale and rebranded. I don't know about now. 10-15 years ago you would always look for CD/DVD blank deals that were rebranded TY, and they were never difficult to find. When they got cheap enough I switched to just ordering large spindles of actual TY.
- ytch 11y ago
  BTW, some of their products are under the brand "That's". This name is common around East Asia.

BossHogg 11y ago

There was a time when they were considered the top brand for consumer grade CD-Rs and DVD-Rs.

PythonicAlpha 11y ago
In quality, I don't know a brand, that is better. Others that where, have already given up (eg. Kodak). For example, I read that Sony once had good discs, but today are just re-branding discs of a much lower-quality brand.
- qrmn 11y ago
  Indeed. Taiyo-Yuden were (still are, until December) one of the very best of the actual manufacturers of optical media: and they explicitly cite that optical media is losing its relevance as why they're ceasing operations in that market. I think this is of historical significance: it's a sea-change moment, with a leading manufacturer essentially conceding that optical media is no longer relevant and can never catch up, destined to fade into the past. Those of us of a certain vintage will remember a similar thing happening to floppy disks - and there are lessons to be learnt from that. Grab a few of these and carefully hang onto them, in the dark and away from heat sources - while you'll still be able to get them in a decade's time, it'll probably be impossible to find any new good-quality media then: so on the basis that you might want one when you least expect it, have a couple handy just in case. There's a certain melancholy here, having seen this technology through its entire lifecycle - but at least we don't have to worry about scratching USB mass storage devices. I think I have only one PC which still has an optical drive, and it's the one which still has a floppy drive. Maybe we'll replace spinning rust, and flash memory, too, in time.

hga 11y ago

They were certainly prominent in terms of quality CD-Rs; you could buy more expensive ones, but you didn't really need to.

desdiv 11y ago

According to their 2014 annual report[0], optical media made up for only 7% of their revenue. [0] http://www.yuden.co.jp/ut/ir/files/news/54376eba6d579.pdf http://www.yuden.co.jp/ut/ir/files/news/54376eba6d579.pdf

bhouston 11y ago

Their disks were sold under the brands names Fujifilm, maxwell, Sony, Panasonic, Plextor, Tdk and verBatim and that's brands.