RR, Since you have replied so sincerely and seriously, i am obligaed to reply to you too. yes. i think you have been more correct about IOM than anyone here (except Darrell Smith who has become a BULL recently). But i am hoping that as the market penetration of Zips increase day by day, it becomes a standard no matter you like it or not. Your HiFi has missed this Christmas sales. They still have some technical difficulties with their product. Who knows when they will be solved? It might take many more months. Since their problems are well known now, no OEM is gonna jump in to have them as standard. Also, Zip is now $119 and if and when HiFD ships, you will see $99 for Zips. In fact, my guess is that IOM is waiting for HiFD for the $99 price of Zips. Zips will have over 20 Mil base when the HiFD ships.
As far as my tiny knowledge goes, IOM is very close in locking up the low end removable drive market or in other words the next floppy std. But i also think they are weak in the high end removable market - in the Jaz side. They were too greedy and arrogant to price Jaz2 at $645 in Jan. Now the price is $399. What a Joke? If they had priced Jaz2 at $399 in Jan, there will be no more SYQT left. Also, they could have stolen some thunder from CD-RW. Even ORB if it ships as they promise, can challenge Jaz since Jaz has lost its lusture. But I am hoping that by the time ORB ships in volume and starts getting the attention of people, IOM will have a cheaper version of 2G drive - mostly due to Nomai acquisition.
In summary, i still think IOM will be the leader in this segment but it has to go through lot of pain and struggle to achieve that. Trust me. I did not think life will be this hard for IOM and i am sure most of the BULLs here also did not expect that. But that does not change the outcome. If IOM struggles this much then how on earth can new comers can make money? So, this game will go on for a long time and most of the new comers will get out of this Biz when they find that it no longer makes sense to lose money just to stay in the game. I only hope IOM can with stand this test and if they do as i think then they will be the much more stronger than anyone thinks.
I also think Clik! will fill a gap in the removable drives of the hand held market and digital camera market. It may not be as big as KE hyped but over all, it will help IOM's profits. Kodak's recent agreement with Intel and IBM's entry are all good signs that there is a market here.
OK. I finally get back to my default lurking with these final stand of me.
1) IOM's Zip - very strong, bread and butter.
2) Jaz - a recent failure and will struggle due to the price and CD-RW
3) Clik! - slow start but will pay off eventually as the market grows.
Thank you. i will rest now ;-)
-senthil |
