THE CD-ROM market is exploding, although no one knows how big the blast is.

But when he returned to Random House with it, he was told that the bottom had fallen out of the CD-ROM market.

"No one vendor is strategically positioned to take it all in the CD-ROM market, with the possible exception of Microsoft."

In the mid 1990s, Creative's venture into the CD-ROM market proved to be unsuccessful.

In 1993 he set up Lost Boys with several of his friends, developing software for the CD-ROM market.

"The CD-ROM market is going to need just this kind of attack from a major player like Sony to open it up."

But it remains unclear, Mr. Freeman said, just how big the CD-ROM market will be.

Director was weighed down by six releases of accumulated legacy, and in particular because its original target was the CD-ROM market, not the Web.

If the Government succeeds, the standard could expand the CD-ROM market by making the systems easier to use in all applications.

As the CD-ROM market grows, there is going to be lot more interest in this kind of piracy.