Sony has confirmed that it will stop manufacturing and supporting floppy disks from next year. That's it, there will be no more.
This tells the technology community a number of things. First, if anyone actually cares about this then the end user community, and particulary the home worker, are further behind the times than we might have thought. I can't remember the last time I used a floppy, and I can't say I recall exactly which was my first computer not to have the right sort of drive.
Second, it tells us we can expect a lot of support calls from people who have been backing up onto floppies religiously for years. They'll be concerned and you can understand why. It's easy to forget, when you're either like me and writing about stuff or like most of the Daniweb community and supporting stuff, that not everybody keeps up like many of us do. They don't upgrade their computers immediately they could and they don't expect manufacturers to bin the media they work with.
At first glance, the passing of the floppy looked a real non-story. My guess is it's going to occupy the support community quite considerably.
