WSJ Interactive Front Page... on Iomega. Full article.
>>>>
Matsushita Unit to Produce Zip Drives in Iomega Pact
Dow Jones News Services
ROY, Utah -- Iomega Corp., the highflying maker of removable computer
disk drives, on Tuesday announced Matsushita Communication Industrial Co.,
a partially owned subsidiary of Japanese giant Matsushita Electric Industrial Co.,
will license Iomega's designs for its Zip drives.
The news pushed Iomega's shares solidly higher. In midafternoon trading
on the Nasdaq Stock Market, the company's shares were quoted at
$14.75, up $1.4375.
Iomega has been trying to establish its drives as a new industry standard.
Its Zip drive is a book-sized, portable storage device that uses a new
kind of floppy disk with a capacity of 100 megabytes, equivalent to storage
of about 70 current floppy disks.
Under the pact, Matsushita gets a world-wide license to produce Zip
drives and sell them under Matsushita's brand names as well as to
other manufacturers, Iomega said. Matsushita plans to begin production
in the fourth quarter.
Iomega recently announced an agreement under which Seagate Technology
Inc. will make high-capacity disks for Iomega's Jaz portable disk drive.
The agreement with Seagate, the world's leading disk-drive maker,
represented a minor boost for Iomega. Jaz is a removable hard-drive
which holds a gigabyte of data, 10 times as much as Zip.
In June, Iomega shares fell 28% after Japan's Mitsubishi Electric Corp.
said it would make disk drives based on the rival LS-120 technology.
The LS-120 is a larger-capacity drive than Zip holding 120 megabytes,
or as much data as 83 standard floppies, and was designed by an
engineering partnership of Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Co.
and Japan's Matsushita-Kotoboki Industries Ltd.
The LS-120 has already won a major endorsement from Compaq Computer
Corp., the leading PC maker in the world, which in April began shipping
the product as a standard component on some business computers.
However, Iomega's backers say the LS-120 is much slower than the
Zip product.
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Not too negative from the WJS, one of the three kings of Iomega bashers.
Perhaps a shot at the end. The last sentence "Iomega 's backers say the
LS120 is much slower than the Zip product" -- is just an opinion by IOMG
backers, not a fact. NO? I haven't yet seen an article from WSJ that has
all its facts straight.
Young |
