IOM long-term outlook: Rocky, I think your arguments are quite sound. But in the real long-term, say 10 years plus, I think removable storage is going to just go away. Instead you will have internet plugs all over the place, just like electric plugs of today, and you will just transfer data from your laptop or whatever using high-speed internet. Laptops will still probably need some removable storage, but a lot of people will just use cordless telephones to dial-in and transfer data, or to browse the internet. If you look at how far we have come in the last 10 years, and understanding the exponential growth rate of the industry, it is fairly obvious that removable storage is going the way magnetic tape storage was replaced by hard disks in the 1980s (i.e. it was rapidly relegated to the low-priced, low-margin, low-growth niche market of backups and backroom storage). All that IOM will have in a couple of years is a "leadership role" in a fast-shrinking market (in dollar terms), and zero, if any profit growth. That is, unless IOM aggressively diversifies into other areas where there is some growth, instead of just making Clik-ing noises.
Joseph |
