RE: Shark Sightings
Allen, Brent, and all,
I think the Shark is cool, too. I played with one a
little bit at PC Expo in NYC last June. As I said at
the time in a posting to this thread, it impressed
me the most of all the potential Iomega competitors
at the show. I think its sales are probably climbing,
too. There were about a half dozen Sharks on the
shelves at the Albany, NY, COMP USA last weekend.
My impression is that they are selling them reasonably
well.
But get the external Zip down close to a hundred bucks, and
get the laptop Zip out there in quantity and costing just
a little less than it costs now, and get internal Zips
into the majority of desktops, and the Shark will be
reduced back to a niche at best, I suspect. Iomega is
working on all these fronts. Just IMHO.
As I see it, the Zip isn't the vulnerable element in the
Iomega family. The Jaz is. The Jaz is a good product--I
own one and use it regularly--but it's pricey, not all
that proprietary in its design, and too limited in
capacity for gilt-edged backup purposes. It does have
a good head start on the competition, but that can be
overcome just as Syquest's lead at the service agencies
was beat if somebody can produce as much of a winner in
the 10**3-plus-MB area as the Zip is at the 10**2-MB area.
More IMHO, of course.
Happy trading, all.
Cheers, Tom (long IOM) |
