Jack Schofield writes about Dell’s latest attempt to ditch the floppy drive.
A five year old article from CNET on a previous attempt at standardization gives some insight as to the problem: New floppy drive announced – Tech News – CNET.com
“The other problem is history. Weilerstein says that when the 3.5-inch floppy became a standard years ago, there were only two companies of significance in the PC industry–Apple and IBM. After these two companies adopted the drives, everyone else followed.”
The mere existence of the anachronistic floppy drive is a testament to a fragmented industry that cannot agree on standards. The only thing approaching a standard to compare with the floppy is the CD-R which is an inconvenient form factor and scores low on ease of use.