Re: IOM
I own an IOM Jaz drive and love it. Your views on removable media, while technically accurate, miss a very important point: compatibility among disparate users. Corporations use these drives to exchange large amounts of data. Therefore, if the person you want to give your IOM Zip disk to has a Syquest drive, you're screwed. I recall that every review I ever read said that Syquest made a better technical drive than IOM, but IOM had the better marketing (and still a very good product) and became the "standard".
Also, Jaz drives are by no means old technology. Name one other company that makes any type of removable media that not only stores 1G of data but that also has access times almost as fast as a hard disk, which means you can actually use it to run programs off of? CD-R drives (currently) work totally differently. See next topic.
As for IOM stock, this is what got me involved in the market. My cousin asked my opinion of what one stock I would invest in and I said IOM since when I tried to buy a Jaz drive they were back ordered three months before the drive was due to be released. Just common sense. He put his entire pention fund in it in the low 20s and made an absolute killing. I 'm glad it was a relative, but I figured why not me?
Their skyrocketing share price is a CLASSIC case of internet manipulation. Yes they had a fantastic product and were trading at a bargain when it was announced. But, the ride was fueled by people on AOL that just kept hyping it-- urging people not to sell. I expect IOM to continue to control its niche market which means good steady sales, but that also means there will be nothing earth shattering that will make the stock price jump again. But, again, one never knows what affect hype will have on a stock. I would bet there are a ton of people that EXPECT another ride for IOM and perhaps some quick movement could spark the masses to jump in.
Re: Pinnacle Micro (source PC Magazine)
Their new Apex 4.6G drive is, as usual, a great piece of engineering but not all that practical, IMO, for the masses. First, it's incredibly slow compared to a hard drive (it uses MO technology). Second, to use the full 4.6G you have to physically turn the disk over. Third, at $1895 list it is expensive (although the blank media is cheap). And last, they face real tough competition from DVD drive makers. As has been my experience with high tech hardware, those that want it buy early, so expect most of their sales to be immediate which might help the stock, I'm really not sure. Then, I think they are in for some tough times.
Re: Hughes Electronics and Adaptec
These are both first rate companies. Ask yourself what happens when businesses start trying to send images, not just data, over the internet (i.e. the stuff we usually fax today)? IBM recently backed out of a huge deal in the life insurance industry to provide just that type of service when they realized their network would crash almost instantly if even just a couple of those billion dollar insurance companies started using it regularly. IMO, the only solution is through satellites (Bill Gates has stated his intention to set up his own satellite-based internet). Hughes' DirecPC product is poised to exploit this scenario.
I actually called them five or six times in early December to get more information for my business, but they never returned my calls. I guess they were busy getting marketing done for Raytheon and/or Northrup!
Adaptec rules the SCSI interface market. Their products are reasonably priced and well made. I include them here because of another person's posting of a press-release talking about a new alliance they and Hughes have. I don't know anything (yet) about Adaptec's stock, but I love the company.I
I hope this helps.
- Jeff |
