When Will LightScribe Be Available?

Updated 01/28/2005
You can now actually buy LightScribe-compatible CD-R media from CompUsa. You can order a LaCie LightScribe DVD burner, but it will not ship until (at least) February.

Original Text of This Page

Hewlett-Packard first announced LightScribe technology at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas early in January of 2004. For some time, the official HP LightScribe FAQ said: "LightScribe-enabled products will begin shipping in the summer of 2004." The 2004 summer arrived with no LightScribe-enabled products in sight, and the question about availability was ominously removed from the official website (although it certainly is one of the most Frequently Asked Questions about LightScribe).

In August, 2004, an HP company representative said that LightScribe products will not arrive until early next year (2005). That sounds like a missed Christmas season for the geek gift that lots of people want to buy, but no one is ready to sell. Hopefully, it is not indicative of worse problems for a technology that appears quite desirable.

Note: The official HP LightScribe FAQ has been updated to once again answer the question of when LightScribe will ship, though the answer is now "beginning in January 2005", which apparently guarantees that the 2004 Christmas shopping season will be missed. That's not something that marketers miss on purpose, so one has to wonder what caused the extensive delay.

Stay tuned for further developments on this front.

See Also

• What is HP's LightScribe technology?
• Why does HP's LightScribe technology matter?
• What is the price of LightScribe drives, cost of media?
• What is LightScribe ink?
• The official HP LightScribe website.

FAQ