To All: I really like the idea of Iomega becoming the next Intel. Can
you imagine what this stock would be worth with a capitalization
of 56 billion.
I'll settle for Iomega reaching 12 to 16 billion.
Thought this article would be interesting for those of you who
need to think large and for those who think Iomega will be following
in Intels footsteps.
Regards,
JP Cross
NEWS FLASH
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Iomega: The Intel of the storage market?
By TODD WASSERMAN
NEW YORK-Iomega's stunning success with its 100M-byte Zip drive-2 million units have been sold since it was introduced in March 1995-has given it the chance to be the Intel of memory storage devices.
Perhaps no one is more aware of the comparison than the Roy, Utah, manufacturer, which after making some high-profile deals with major OEMs last month unveiled product stickers modeled on Intel's wildly successful "Intel Inside" campaign.
In coming months, computers by IBM, Hewlett-Packard, NEC, Acer, Micron, Power Computing and Unisys that can accommodate built-in Zip drives will sport "Iomega Ready" stickers, as will Bandai Pippin@World gaming terminals. BDEC, a subsidiary of Bandai (which also markets the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers), plans to begin marketing the Zip-based storage option worldwide by the end of this year.
Iomega, which announced the move during last week's PC Expo here, also plans to put the stickers on notebooks in the first quarter of 1997. Its internal 15mm 100M-byte Zip drive will be shipped with unnamed OEMs for an unnamed price, an Iomega spokesman said.
Iomega's notebook drives are modular, so home users can take the whole unit out and possibly replace it with a CD-ROM or floppy drive. Andy Grolnick, Zip's product manager, said the lack of a standard notebook bay size makes it unwise to market notebook Zip drives on their own. Grolnick said his company has addressed fears that the drive would take up too much power by installing a sleep function, which reserves power when the Zip drive isn't being used. He said Zip's drive would likely take up the power of a CD-ROM.
If successful, Iomega's drive into the suddenly red-hot notebook market could make it the standard for built-in disk storage drives. Rounding out its attack on the notebook market, Iomega also announced Zip Unleashed!, a $49.99 rechargeable power pack, and a new $99 Zip card, which allows Intel-based computers to use a SCSI Zip drive.
Iomega president and chief executive officer Kim Edwards said he expects that the memory-hungry Windows 95, the graphics-laden World Wide Web and the emergence of digital cameras will continue to fuel the market.
But the surge in memory storage sales has not been across the board. SyQuest, the de facto standard for desktop publishers, stumbled during the same time Iomega became the toast of Wall Street because, as SyQuest vice president of marketing Ron Brown said, "We were trying to please everybody."
The Fremont, Calif., manufacturer is currently attempting a comeback by sticking to its core market-those desktop publishers and graphics professionals who Brown said enjoy the performance of SyQuest's hard-drive technology. |
