<Consider 10 Zip disks that go for $15 a piece. Thats $150 for 1 GB. And the drive costs around $149. Which is obviously a better buy?
The Sparq 1 GB drive, of course.>
Mr Buzz, Aw c'mon. Get your prices right. You can now get Zip disks for $8 apiece in packs of 6 if you shop. That's only $80 for 1GB. The drive you can get for $99 (again, you must shop for it, but it is out there).
So the first GB is actually cheaper for Zip. After that, SparQ has the advantage, but it's not nearly as bad as you depict. How many GB of removable storage does joe sixpack need? And there are offsetting factors such as reliability (I am convinced Zip is more reliable than Sparq), longevity of the company (SYQT is doomed - 90% probablity) and the problem of putting all your eggs in one basket (the flip side is the inconvenience of swapping Zips for very large files). But surely, being able to share disks with 12M other Zip owners is worth something. How many SparQ owners can you share with? 100K? One or two people per stadium audience. Good luck finding them.
After all is said and done, Zip is still looking mighty good. Whereas SparQ looks like a temporary fad. If in 1 year SparQ is still on the shelves, I'll be back here to eat a heaping helping of humble pie. |
