Repost: Profile of Bill Krause
Thread, found the following Newspiece. Have to read it myself still.
Holding long and waiting,
Thomas
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3Com Founder Beats Drum For Scanners - Profile
Newsbytes - February 13, 1998 17:11
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1998 FEB 13 (NB) -- By Craig Menefee, Newsbytes. (Note: Corrects sales amount in last paragraph). Bill Krause came onboard 3Com [NASDAQ:COMS] so early he is generally considered a co-founder, with Robert Metcalfe, of that firm. But he left in order, not to overstay his usefulness, he says. Nowadays he's out stumping for a new firm, Storm Technology [NASDAQ:EASY], as an evangelist for the graphical input devices known as scanners.
"Preaching" is a habit he got into years ago, he says. Once or twice a year he renews his contacts out in the world of analysts, reporters and other industry watchers in order, as he told Newsbytes, "to stay in touch with the environment." He says the practice has saved him from more than a few missteps along the way.
But this year it's all about scanners. Krause, an alumnus of Hewlett- Packard in the glory years when they made the brand all but synonymous with laser printers, is convinced HP has missed the boat on scanners. They've tried to sell their brand instead of price/performance value, and in the process have relinquished what could have been market leadership.
As for Umax, the scanner market leader, Krause told Newsbytes, "We loved it when they got distracted trying to be a clone maker. They're a good, strong company and we wouldn't mind it if they abandoned scanners altogether."
But Krause is determined to make Storm, his new company, one of the top three players in the scanner market. To do so, in December Storm acquired Logitech's scanner business and became, overnight, the dominant sheetfed scanner vendor, with a claimed 42 percent market share.
Storm also claims leadership in photo scanners, with a rousing 71 percent of the market. But those two areas do not comprise the entire market.
In fact, the market has no dominant leader right now. Umax, despite its misadventure in the Apple clone market, leads with 22 percent, up from 14 percent last year, says Krause. During the same year, HP missed a rapidly falling price cycle for scanners and fell from 40 to a 20 percent market share, a rare event for that market-savvy firm.
Sitting in the chair Storm wants, as number three in market share, is solid but somewhat stagnant Mustek, whose 16 percent market share was steady at a full third higher than Storm's current 12 percent.
Krause figures they can take it away from Mustek. On Wednesday, Storm inked a deal with the Staples office supply chain to resell Storm's EasyPhoto ImageWave flatbed scanner. In one signature, Krause doubled Storm's retail channel size for that device, the first full-color flatbed scanner to retail for under $100.
And other big deals are cooking, says Krause, though he won't discuss them.
"What people haven't realized yet, no matter how often I try to tell them, is that data goes in and data goes out, and one will ultimately equal the other," Krause told Newsbytes. "The 'goes-innies' will equal the 'goes-outies' sooner or later. There's only about a two-year lag."
He's convinced the market for graphical input devices -- particularly including scanners and digital cameras -- is about to explode the way the bubble-jet printer market did during the past two years. He's been right about such predictions before.
He says his objectives for 1998 are for Storm to achieve $100 million in sales, to ship more than 1.2 million scanners and to increase gross margins to 23 percent. With the European retail channels Logitech providing as part of the December scanner deal, and with the interest he's received from US retailers like Staples, some market watchers think Krause may meet his objectives months before the year is over.
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