gil,
In reference to David Alger's comment on Iomega: Maybe he means that since Zip is a technology product and that competing technologies will advance and overtake in leapfrog fashion, that the Zip drive is already or soon to be obsolete?
Give me a break.
The great thing about the Zip drive is the fact that It comfortably fills a need for cheap, easy-to-use, removable storage - at a time when millions of consumers require more storage in general and removable storage in particular due to the widening acceptance of the PC and the Internet as essential tools.
Sure, competition will eventually overtake Zip: in size, speed, durability and cost. But not anytime real soon.
Granted, advances will be made in CD-R technology to make it more affordable. CD-R technology is cheaper on a per megabyte basis, though it has a much higher initial cost (for the drive). CD's have a much higher shelf life - at least 10 years (maybe more, depending on storage conditions) vs 5 years for magnetic media like Zip.
CD-R technology, however, has not matured enough to match the Zip in ease of use and initial affordability. CD-R is now roughly 4 times as expensive than Zip for the drive itself. The the cost of CD-R will certainly fall, but so will the cost of Zip drives. Cost reductions need not be mutually exclusive.
I recently purchased an HP 8100 CD-R/RW drive. It uses both CD-R and CD-RW discs. I paid $399 for the drive. I purchased an internal IDE drive since the external version used a parallel port connection (really slow).
It's great for making copies of CD's (music, data) and backing up files for storage on a CD that can be used on CD-ROM drive. CD-R discs can be written to only once. CD-RW discs can be written to and erased multiple times, though CD-RW discs can only be read by a CD-R/RW drive, and not CD-ROM drives. Both CD-R and CD-RW disks hold about 650MB.
All this however, is not a simple thing. The CD-R (or CD-RW) must first be formatted for use. Then, depending on the particular type of use (CD copying, data CD creation), different programs are used to perform these tasks. Formatting a CD-RW disc takes about an hour, while formatting a CD-R takes a few seconds. It is not a simple technology that the vast majority of consumers could easily understand and use - not like Zip.
While CD-R/RW technology is a now viable means of cheap (not the drive), expansive and durable storage, it does not now match Zip in terms of ease of use and initial cost, which as we know, are critical elements of mass consumer acceptance.
Philip |
