Interview - Marketing Manager Lite-On


Lite-On could currently be called the leader on the CD-RW market. There is no doubt that drives manufactured by the Taiwanese company are very populair and sell very well. This is mainly due the fact that the drives have excellent performance and come at a very low price. While you might not have heard from the brand, if you own drives from brands like Cendyne, Memorex, Verbatim, TDK and Sony you might have Lite-On technology inside.

Altough this seems to be advertising the company, you might ask almost anyone on forums around the internet and they will confirm this is true. Because the company is currently so important to the CD-RW industry we have asked the Marketing Manager of Lite-On several questions, here they are with their answers below:

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  • There are rumors about a new 56x/32x/56x drive that will hit the streets soon, could this be a Lite-On drive ? Or is Lite-On not planning to release any drives faster then 52x ?

    At the moment, 52x CDRW is where we feel the CD-R speed will peak at. To design a faster drive is always possible, but we feel not necessary. The time savings of burning a CD at 56x isn't as compelling, plus there is always safety concerns on the disc speed tolerance level, not to mention additional noise and vibration in the drive itself. We believe a drive speed of 52x CD-R is where it

    will end.

  • What is according to Lite-On the key to the current success (good price/quality performance) on the optical storage market ?

    At LiteOn we pride ourselves in offering consumers with low-cost, quality optical drives. We are able to do this because we supply just about every major PC OEM in the world with a CD drives. With the quality expectation and manufacturing capacity requirements those PC OEMs have on LiteOn is what drives us to design and produce the very best opto-drives we can.

    Another part of being successful is taking the product we have and being able to cost reduce it even further, while enhancing and improving the drive at the same time. Our LiteOn R&D team has alot to do with this effort. Today, we continue to pour R&D resources to develop features that may seem minor, but actually improve the
    drive dramatically.

    For example, reducing the air pockets inside the drive itself to minimize noise and vibration, or even design a separate chamber around the volume knob of a opto-drive to trap debris and particles so that it doesn't get into the critical components of the drive. These are just a couple things consumers may not see or know about, but we at LiteOn are engineering into our drives because these enhancements do make a difference in the overall performance and user experience.

  • Currently there are a lot of audio CDs on the market that are produced in such a way that they can't be played in normal CD-(RW) drives, for now Lite-On drives performed well on every test we have done, except on reading these kind of CD's, is there any chance this will be improved in the future ?

    We hope to be able to provide consumers with the ultimate solution, but we also understand that there needs to be a level of cooperation with the music industry as well. Hopefully both sides can agree to work together and be able to provide the consumer with the ideal solution. This same debate is happening already with DVD technology and several of the movie studios. But we are optimistic about the future.

  • Can Lite-On still guarantee the quality of the written CD-Rs at the high speed of 52x and higher?

    We're confident that our 52x CD-R speed will meet consumers expectations.We feel very good about our overall design and manufacturing. Consumers need to understand though that there are other important factors to consider to achieve a quality burn, quality of the media, firmware updates, etc. At LiteOn, when we introduce a new product into the market, we do as much testing as possible with various burning apps and CD medias so that we can ensure that the consumer will be satisfied with their selection.

  • Is there any chance Lite-On will be a player on the CD-R discs market?

    At the moment, we do bundle our own LiteOn branded CD-R media with a LiteOn Retail kit. We are considering expanding that business in the future.

  • Does Lite-On make profits on their CD-RW drives (As the prices compared to many competitors are very low, while also performance is outstanding)
  • LiteOn is quite successful and profitable in our opto-drive business. We continue to thrive in the PC OEM market and continue to grow our Private Label OEM customer base as well. Many of the drives that you see on the Retail shelves today are manufactured by LiteOn. We have also been very successful marketing our LiteOn branded products into resellers and distribution channels as well.
  • What can we expect from Lite-On in the future?

    We are very excited about the future here at LiteOn. We have new USB products, combo products, slim products and of course our new DVD-RW and other DVD technology related products. You can expect to see LiteOn Optical products intended for the Consumer Electronics market as well. Our goal is to make the LiteOn brand more known and we are doing this by expanding into new product categories,

    launching new promotions and sponsorships, introducing new and attractive packaging and expansion into new markets like Latin America.

    For more information on Lite-On drives, why they are so populair, help and discussions around them, we would like to refer to our Lite-On Forum at Club CD Freaks.com

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