Cypress Firm Has Its Sights on Optical Disk Drive Market : Computers: MOST Inc. says it is poised to become a leading manufacturer in the new high-tech storage field.

A group of managers who bought their company from its Japanese parent have introduced an optical disk drive they hope will give them a head start in the market for the devices.

MOST Inc. this month began shipping a drive that can store twice as much information as many of those produced by its competitors, and Chairman Tony Clifford said he expects few other companies will be able to match it until next year at the earliest.

“We think we can get our costs down to where we’re selling our drive for what a comparable product with half as much storage now sells for,” Clifford said. “If we can do that as we scale up [production], we’ll be on to something.”

MOST’s drive is designed to allow a single disk to store 2.6 gigabytes of information--or roughly 1.4 million single-spaced pages of text.

Soon, MOST hopes to sell the drive for a little more than $2,000, which is what a drive with only half as much memory now costs.

Storing computerized information on optical disks has drawn the attention of many hardware makers in recent years as more powerful programs that generate more information to manage are introduced.

Computer data was traditionally kept on magnetic tape, which gave way to the magnetic disk drives that are common to desktop computers.

Today, however, some companies are developing systems to store information on optical disks instead. The disks resemble audio compact discs and are read by similar lasers. But the systems will allow users to write computerized information onto them as well as retrieve information from them.

Optical disks are easier to manage and more secure than magnetic drives, but they are pricier and somewhat slower. Until engineers can improve their speed, they will be used mainly for network computers.

Hewlett-Packard is a major customer of MOST, though it only buys components rather than completed drives. Such sales gave MOST an undisclosed profit on revenue of $20 million last year, when the company was owned by Nakamichi Corp. of Japan.

The growing market and MOST’s performance drew Clifford’s attention.

Until January, Clifford was chief financial officer of another optical storage products company, Optex Communications Corp., in Rockville, MD. But after starting discussions with Nakamichi, Clifford set in motion a leveraged buyout that also came to include MOST President Yas Yamazaki and Jim Conway, vice president for engineering. All three are now principals of the new firm, which has 120 employees, including 90 at its factory in Colorado Springs.

Clifford declined to specify the purchase price or the amount of debt taken on by the company as a result of the sale.

“We’ll be looking for financing over the course of next year, but whether that will be public [stock] or private remains to be seen,” Clifford said.

By combining several design teams from the divisions it bought from Nakamichi, MOST has been able to make the jump from components to completed drives, which Clifford described as critical for the company’s growth.

Now MOST’s main task, he said, will be to “get the product out the door” before its competitors can introduce similar designs. Rivals include divisions of Sony, Hitachi and Olympus.

Another Orange County company, Pinnacle Micro Inc., also produces and sells optical disk drives, and sells a 1.3 gigabyte drive for $2,000.