Japan has announced that it is ditching the floppy disk – two decades after they disappeared almost completely from PC spec’ sheets. The country’s government has declared that it has now eliminated the use of floppy disks in all systems and processes, but it has not been easy, and there may be lessons that other organisations struggling to digitally transform can learn from its experience.
► Many organisations face issues transferring data from legacy tech
► Challenges with old kit could be holding back DX
Floppy disks were a popular storage medium on desktops, portables and laptops for around 40 years but fell out of use when flash drives and USB storage devices became more widely available. By around 2000 they had all but disappeared, their use limited to specialist devices, such as legacy industrial and audio systems. Sony reportedly produced its last new floppy disks in 2011.
Japan has been updating its technology regulations to bring all processes into the digital era and had declared its goal of eliminating floppies – which were still used to submit and store some documents – in 2021, after it met challenges rolling out COVID testing and vaccinations nationwide.
One of the problems the country has faced in ending the use of floppy disks is that new systems can’t read them. This has made data transfer and process updates difficult. According to a report on IT Pro, the digital transformation of around 80% of organisations globally may be hampered in some way by issues with legacy technologies and public services are often the worst affected.
