PC World says death to floppies

How to recycle a 3.5in disk. And a PR strategy

Posted in IT Channel, 31st January 2007 12:25 GMT

PC World’s marketing department declared the death of the floppy disk yesterday, generating a wave of publicity that even rivalled Bill Gates’ touting of Vista.

The chain said it would eject floppies once it has cleared existing stock. It reckons that by the summer, none of the laptops or PCs it sells will actually include floppy drives.

A quick search of the PC superstore’s website turned up at least two brands of floppy disks. But when we tried to help out PC World by buying all that stock in a single go, it would only let us have a maximum of three boxes worth.

According to PC World’s blurb, worldwide floppy sales were 2 billion back in 1998, but are now a sickly 700 million.

Still, that does mean an awful lot of floppies are still cluttering up the planet. What are we going to do with them? Solve the homelessness crisis? Fashion them into ninja deathstars? Or melt them all down to be refashioned into iPhones?

Maybe we should ask PC World? Afterall, the company's parent, DSG International, has a talent for recycling, particularly of marketing stunts. After all, in the last year or two alone it's generated cheap publicity from declaring the death of CRTs and the VCR. ®

Free whitepaper – Exchange 2007 risks and mitigation strategies