Sony Optiarc, manufacturer of many of the optical drives that spin your
discs in stereos, computers and other devices, has declared to stop the
production of optical drives. In times where most of the data is streamed
via cloud services and the internet, this seems logical.

But the medium itself is still very popular. Let alone BD, DVD, CD. They’re all yet sold in masses. So the manufacturing stop from Sony Optiarc may give Masushita (Panasonic) a new boost in sale numbers. They also seem cheaper yet not worse than the Sony Optiarc drives.

The production stop is scheduled for end of October 2012. So Sony has manufactured optical drives for almost 20 years.