"Yes, a 100 MB drive with a 29ms access time is shoddy. Unfortuneately,
the majority of mass market consumers are piss poor purchasers of
computer equipment. The hottest selling zip is the parallel version!
Yes, the ZIP is the "standard," and there's nothing you or I can do
about it."
Jimmy, your statement above truly shows why IOMG is so successful
and others aren't. If there is a paradigm which caught the data storage
industry off-guard, the above statement probably says it all.
To blame consumers as "piss poor purchasers of computer equipment"
is in itself a total failure in understanding psychology, needs, and values
the consumers put on a product (a la Syquest). If the consumers prefers
the parallel version of Zip, there are good reasons why they do so. And
the proper thing to do is to make more parallel units, and re-examine your
understanding of the needs and psychology of the consumers - not to
say that they did so because they are all ignorant. Remember, consumers
are always right!
Price vs. performance, usefulness, convenience, and dependability are always
high on consumer 's consideration when buying products. Performance alone
is usually never the main consideration of the mass consumers, that's why
high-performance products are often found only in nich markets.
Lots of high-tech companies have lost big time because they assumed
that consumers prefer the most technically advanced, most perfect solution.
These companies often developed great solutions first then go out looking
for uses/applications afterward, instead of identifying the needs/applications
first, then build the solutions to fit them. (Of course, IOMG did just that.)
If the average consumers want a $15,000 4-cylinder mid-size car, and you
decide to build $25,000 8-cyl full-size car because it's technically more superior,
then you are certainly looking at bankcruptcy. Of course, this was basically
what happened to the US car industry in the late 70's and 80's when the
Japanese cars invaded the US market in a big way.
Young
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