The technology is due to bring re-recordable CD devices to the market in the early months of 1997 at prices below $1,000, and should begin being built into top-end computers next year.

The new format will enable users to store 450 times as much data, including video and audio recordings, as a 3.5 inch floppy diskette and is designed to be compatible with new CD-ROM readers and upcoming DVD-ROM drives.

"ReWritable removes the single biggest barrier to greater market acceptance of CD writing technology," said Dave Deane, Future CD Writer Product Manager at Hewlett-Packard's Colorado Memory Systems division in Loveland, Co.

Hewlett-Packard, Mitsubishi Chemical and Ricoh are the other companies unveiling the new technology, which has been 18 months in the works.

Analysts said the CD-ROM technology could eventually pressure other storage companies like Iomega, whose revenues have soared on the popularity of its 100 megabyte Zip drives and other storage products, and struggling removable hard drive maker SyQuest Technology.

"I think this would put some pressure on SyQuest type products," said Ray Freeman, president of Freeman Associates, a Santa Barbara market research firm.

"This is a higher-capacity product, so it's not going head-to-head," he said, noting that Compact Disks store up to 650 megabytes of data, a larger capacity than Iomega and SyQuest offer on their lower-end consumer-oriented models.

Because the new technology standard is designed to work with common CD-ROM readers and the new DVD-ROM technology, Freeman said its introduction was "an important step in a continuum," following CD-Recordable, a technology on the market since 1991 that allows once-only recording.

Freeman projects the CD-Recordable market will hit 1.3 million units this year, and the combined CD-Recordable and CD-ReWriteable market will more than double to 2.9 million units in 1997 and, combined with DVD systems, grow to 10.65 million in 2000.

Rob van Eijk, director of strategic marketing at Philips Laser Optics North America, in San Jose, Calif., said the new CD technology is aimed more at the space occupied by 100 million CD-ROMs than the floppy disk space.

The small office home office market and the high end home or small office markets are viewed as key markets for the technology as well, he added, saying the compatibility with other media made it a versatile technology.

Both Philips and Hewlett-Packard expect to offer devices in the first quarter of 1997 that would be under the $1,000 price point, but at a sizable premium to the CD-Recordable write-once equipment now selling for as low as $499.

Hewlett-Packard's Deane said his company had reached the conclusion that without the new CD-ReWritable technology, "the potential market would top out at a fairly low number."