News from CMP, 11/24 :
Vendor Refocuses on Product, Rebuilds Management Team
-- SyQuest Fires Off SparQ to Reboot Its Role in
Removable Media Market
By Gregory Quick
Fremont, Calif.-When a company seeks to re-establish itself as a market
leader, it pays to be aggressive. That's how SyQuest hopes to regain its
former prominent position in the removable mass-storage market.
The company rebuilt its management team over the past year and has
upgraded its products, but recognized it needed more.
"We needed a breakout product for the consumer market to make people
pay attention," said Gary Marks, SyQuest executive vice president of
marketing. Realizing the need is one thing, finding what will fill the need is
another case entirely. So the company took two steps to help it along that
path.
The first move was SyQuest's decision to concentrate on removable storage;
the second was to find out from customers and channel partners why they
needed storage.
SyQuest discovered that with the increase in input devices and sources for
data including scanners, the Internet and digital cameras, there is an increasing
need for storage.
The company's solution:the SparQ, a 1GB removable media solution for PCs
that will be available in both parallel-port and EIDE configurations.
"We felt that the price point was vital, so we positioned it at a $199
[expected street price]," Marks said, adding that it was equally important to
make the media reasonably priced so users would have an inexpensive
growth path.
A three-pack of cartridges has an ESP of $99. Each cartridge carries an ESP
of $39.
"This gives a user 4GB of storage for about the same price as a 4GB hard
drive costs, but with the added advantages of removability and expansion,"
Marks said.
The drive, which is currently shipping, features software including McAfee
Network Web Scan, Howdy! and three SegaHeat games, along with three
months of free access to SegaSoft's online game network.
Copyright (c) 1997 CMP Media Inc. |
