Brendan, There sure is a chance this trend will reverse again
even if all the future PCs sell for around $1000.
<<Is there still hope for a Zip standard? It looked good all last year with computer makers putting Zip into increasing SKUs, but now the trend has reversed.Is there anyone who thinks this trend will reverse again, and if so why? Brendan>>
Two possibilities: One, Iomega drops prices to a thinner margin for
both drives and disks. My guess they can make the drives cheap
enough to profit at $35 - 40 to OEMs, $50 retail, and disks at $2 to 3
wholesale, $4 to 5 retail. At that point, OEMs could substitute Zip
for floppy instead of in addition to floppy (but Zip has to be boot
drive).
Two, they stay fairly high in price, but less than now, and the Zip
becomes the favorite add on product for all those $1000 PCs at
birthdays, Christmas, etc. That is the way they got started anyway,
as an add on, so add inside or add outside. The key again is getting
the drive price below $80 and the disks below $6.
But my true opinion is the Clik drive will be the true floppy
replacement. Will put the kabosh on Zip drives and disks and
everything else for the new standard. Small convenient size,
interconnects multiple products including all portable devices,
and eventually very very cheap. The disks could well be 50 cents
in a few years. They would be used for throwaway storage, backup,
taking files home, sharing files, coasters, etc. A cheap substitute
for current floppies but with more capacity, more reliability, and
easy size to carry and store. These should have tie ratios like
current floppies, 50 to 1 vs 5 to 1. The perfect product for
the cheap Rockheads of the world.
Regards, David S. |
