And another point of view.
Subject: PC Expo Reort
Date: Tue, Jun 16, 1998 18:16 EDT
From: D Turkey
Message-id: <1998061622165400.SAA15435@ladder01.news.aol.com>
Spent the day wandering through PC Expo here in Fun City. Some comments. I'll try not to duplicate what the bro will post, as he took more notes than me.
Had a nice chat with Tyler Thatcher of Investor Relations. Some points:
Zip drives have a margin of %5-%15, while disks have a margin of %40-%60. ( I know I should have asked for more details on this, like internal vs. external, gross vs. net, but I was just so suprised to actually hear numbers of any sort, I forgot. Guess he took me by suprise :) )
Iomega is making efforts to improve Wall Street relations.
Sigma Six efforts could reduce costs by up to %50
I asked if NEC would be helping to market/expand the spread of the Clik market. He said the NEC deal to license Clik drives is, like the Zip deal, a manufacturing deal. If they want to do Clik marketing is up to them. They're free to chase OEM's as they see fit.
Clik Stuff
Clik has a sizeable presence in the Iomega booth, as expected. Unfortunately the current setup as they have displayed doesn't seem as elegant and idiot-proof as it could be. When Clik first hits the market, the process for using it with a digital camera will go something like this: Pictures got shot onto a flash card. When the card is full you take it out of the camera and put it into the Clik drive, which will have a Flash card reader attached,
and download the pictures to the Clik disk. Once back at your computer the Clik drive goes into a caddy/stand, which is plugged into the parallel port through some sort of conversion box. The whole setup, including Clik drive, one disk, Flash card attachment and converter box is suppose to cost under $200. But it seems like more pieces than it should be.
The In-focus(?)/Microsoft/Clik overhead projector package that was suppose to ship in June will ship, minus the Clik drive, which will ship in the 2nd half.
There is no new Clik competition out there. Nothing but the same little Flash cards we've already seen.
There are digital cameras EVERYWHERE. MegaPixel models are coming on big. But nobody outside the Iomega booth could/would talk about Clik as a future storage option. Whether it's because the particular person I talked to in each booth didn't know about it, they were told not to say anything, or, most likely, they simply didn't see any point in talking about a product that isn't out and might or might not work with their product, I couldn't tell
you.
Zip Stuff
Sony:
Won't commit to a thing. The HiFD will ship "sometime in the second half", it's cost will be "competitive with what's out there", it "probably will be included in some of Sony's computers". They did, however, have a working drive up and running.
Imation
Claims 2 million LS-120's sold. They were handing out $100 rebate coupons on $150 drives. Had a really pathetic looking guy on stage in a huge SuperDrive disk costume. His parents can't be very proud of him tonight.
Caleb Technology
Yet another company with a floppy compatible high capacity drive. A tiny booth downstairs in the low rent section of the show. 144MB disks that are all magnetic. None of the magnetic/optical combination that Imation and Sony are going with. They had a working model up and running. Expected ship dates-by the end of the year. No big marketing plans yet. Looks like a pretty small outfit, but the guy we chatted with claims going all magnetic gives
them a big speed advantage over the magnetic/optical combo's. Expected price: "well under" $100 for the drive, under $10 for the disk. Going all magnetic lets them make it so cheap, so they say.
Castlewood
A joke of a booth. A tiny spot near Iomega on the edge of the show. One guy working the PC who had trouble shutting off the shoot-em-up game that was running so he could show up the drive. With help he finally got the game off and was able to show a working 2.1GB Orb drive.
Microtech International's Mii Zip 100 drive looks very cool. No power cord. A nice looking product.
More later as the mood strikes me.
Dan
www.turkewitz.com
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