I must say that anyone who claims that this kind of standard is or will be absolutely accept is sorely mistaken. This is yet another group of people who's standard is going to sit unused by the majority and who's effort is going to be for naught.
Anyone who has ever worked with in any kind of market where there exists an ANSI/ISO standard or some other regulatory standard knows that standards mean nothing if they affect your product. Customers and your products success come first, strict compliance with standards is not a requirement for most markets (life supporting devices, military applications, etc. are another story). Take SQL for example, there are two SQL standards out right now (SQL, and SQL2) and a third is in the works. Yet, there isn't a single SQL DBMS that completely complies with these standards.
Just because a bunch of engineers and media men say, 'This is how its going to be' doesn't carry any weight. Business are going to do what's going to keep them in business. And nothing short of the tightest government regulations are going to make them do something that might damage their business. Hard drive manufactures are not stupid. They know that the only way they would every sign on to such a standard would be if:
Every major competitor signed on to the exact same standard at the same time.
Industry regulations prevented foreign interference from companies who might side step them.
They were legally protected from any damage they might take from supporting this.
They actually have something to gain from taking the time and money to add support.
No company is going to risk support for something as clearly stupid as this if there was nothing to gain. And there is nothing to be gained from this kind of support. None of their customers want this standard, it introduces technical nightmares for end users, it requires changes in manufacturing and testing, and it offers absolutely no competitive advantage.
Look at it this way lets say all the major HD manufactures decided to sign on. But, IBM says no. Now you have a market where companies that were in fierce competition with fairly similar products are now at a disadvantage. IBM would kill them in almost every area. Lets say your company was completely composed of Compaq servers. If you continued to buy Compaq servers you'd buy the most basic storage package, ditch it, and go to IBM for your storage needs. Or you'd do what most companies would do, cut your losses, ditch Compaq and go with IBM. No one in this tight market is going to risk that kind of transition. Of course it doesn't take a company like IBM to undermine this kind of arrangement, a small company with enough capital could get the technology and manufacturing infrastructure within a few months to crush them in the HD market.
They only places you're going to see this sort of thing implemented are proprietary embedded devices like DVD players, portable devices like MP3 players or electronic book devices, etc. Manufactures are not stupid and no one wants to bankrupt their company.
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I must say that anyone who claims that this kind of standard is or will be absolutely accept is sorely mistaken. This is yet another group of people who's standard is going to sit unused by the majority and who's effort is going to be for naught.
Anyone who has ever worked with in any kind of market where there exists an ANSI/ISO standard or some other regulatory standard knows that standards mean nothing if they affect your product. Customers and your products success come first, strict compliance with standards is not a requirement for most markets (life supporting devices, military applications, etc. are another story). Take SQL for example, there are two SQL standards out right now (SQL, and SQL2) and a third is in the works. Yet, there isn't a single SQL DBMS that completely complies with these standards.
Just because a bunch of engineers and media men say, 'This is how its going to be' doesn't carry any weight. Business are going to do what's going to keep them in business. And nothing short of the tightest government regulations are going to make them do something that might damage their business. Hard drive manufactures are not stupid. They know that the only way they would every sign on to such a standard would be if:
No company is going to risk support for something as clearly stupid as this if there was nothing to gain. And there is nothing to be gained from this kind of support. None of their customers want this standard, it introduces technical nightmares for end users, it requires changes in manufacturing and testing, and it offers absolutely no competitive advantage.
Look at it this way lets say all the major HD manufactures decided to sign on. But, IBM says no. Now you have a market where companies that were in fierce competition with fairly similar products are now at a disadvantage. IBM would kill them in almost every area. Lets say your company was completely composed of Compaq servers. If you continued to buy Compaq servers you'd buy the most basic storage package, ditch it, and go to IBM for your storage needs. Or you'd do what most companies would do, cut your losses, ditch Compaq and go with IBM. No one in this tight market is going to risk that kind of transition. Of course it doesn't take a company like IBM to undermine this kind of arrangement, a small company with enough capital could get the technology and manufacturing infrastructure within a few months to crush them in the HD market.
They only places you're going to see this sort of thing implemented are proprietary embedded devices like DVD players, portable devices like MP3 players or electronic book devices, etc. Manufactures are not stupid and no one wants to bankrupt their company.