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The End of the 3.5-inch Floppy Continues
JoshuaInNippon writes "In a brief press release buried within Sony Japan's website, the company announced that it would be ending sales of the classic 3.5-inch diskette in the country in March 2011. Sony introduced the size to the world in 1981, and it saw its heyday in the 1990s. Sony has been one of the last major manufacturers to continue shipments of the disk type it helped develop, but had ended most worldwide sales in March of this year. The company's production of the 3.5-inch floppy ceased in 2009. Sony noted demand, or lack thereof, as the reason. The company's withdrawal is one of the final acts in the slow death of the floppy era."
If you just look at the PC market you're right - floppies have been out of fashion for quite some time, and I don't think I've used one in at least a decade either, although I know some individuals in education who still have all of their crucial data (exams, assignments, custom s/w for their field, etc.) on 3.5"s.
However, where this really could cause problems is in some embedded systems. For some reason a lot of manufacturers of CNC equipment, like VMCs or even embroidery machines, stuck with the ubiquitous floppy for far too long. I know at least as late as 05-06 Haas CNC was still using floppies.
It looks to me like makers of floppy to usb adapters are going to be in for a boon.