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Non-Tech : Any info about Iomega (IOM)? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rocky Reid who wrote (34392)	11/4/1997 1:46:00 AM
From: Martin Olsen	Respond to of 58324

SparQ is true. Iomega has a big hurt coming to their margins. Will Syquest gain dominance? Maybe not, but they can still kill Iomega's margins in a price war. I am going to CompUSA this week to order a SparQ 1 Gigabyte drive for $199. Bye-bye Iomega. Rocky, I fear that you are taking this removable storage war too seriously, if not personally... -M

To: Rocky Reid who wrote (34392)	11/4/1997 2:00:00 AM
From: Bill Fischofer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 58324

Re: SparQ threat SparQ is only a threat insofar as SYQT is able to ship it in volume and make money on it. Given that SparQ has just obsoleted SyJet, and that SYQT is still losing money, I don't see how they will pull this off even if SparQ is everything they claim it to be. Will be interesting to hear your experiences with the product. Please let us know when you manage to obtain one.

To: Rocky Reid who wrote (34392)	11/4/1997 2:34:00 AM
From: William R. Polk	Respond to of 58324

To All: Check out O'Grady's PowerBook site at www.ogrady.com for November 1, 1997. He discussed VST situation and makes the following comments: <<On the bright side, I have been using a pre-release seed unit of the VST Zip 100 drive in a PowerBook 3400 for the past few months, and have been impressed with the implementation and with performance. Full compatibility with desktop Zip drives is supported, and appears to be perfect in the limited testing I have done. The VST PowerBook Zip drive came complete with an automated seven-language installer, a universal version of Mac OS 8 pre-installed, and the usual Iomega Tools applications for read/read-write password protection of individual Zip cartridges. <<Snip>> With respect to productivity, the expansion bay pioneered by Apple, and particularly the expansion bay Zip drive, is probably the most significant enhancement to PowerBook productivity in recent years and an incredibly useful peripheral.>> Bill

To: Rocky Reid who wrote (34392)	11/4/1997 2:49:00 AM
From: FuzzFace	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 58324

No one has yet challenged the stated speed of the SparQ from the SYQT web site syquest.com Ideal Performance for data intensive applications. Seek time 12ms. Delivers EIDE burst rates of up to 16.6MB/sec. (PIO mode 4) and data transfer rates from 3.7 to 6.9MB/sec. Parallel Port design sustained transfer rate is approximately 1.25MB/sec. with a burst rate of 2.0MB/sec.. Parallel Port performance varies with your processor speed. Application performance supported with a 512K intelligent caching buffer. In your dreams, SYQT. In reality, the burst rate will be something like 3.7 to 6.9MB/sec. 16.6MB/sec is the absolute fastest PIO Mode 4 allows. NO ONE HAS EVER ACHIEVED IT OR ANYTHING CLOSE TO IT (for technical reasons beyond the scope of this post.) Read any HD review in any PC mag if you don't believe me. A real life example: 196MB in 80 seconds equals ~ 2.5 MB/sec. That's what I get copying from a 1-month-old WDC 6.4 GB UDMA MODE 2 HD to a 7-month old WDC 2.5 GB PIO Mode 4 HD using a 1-month-old Cyrix PR200+ with a 1-month-old UDMA mobo and Intel's TX chipset and Win 95 OSR2. That's the fastest sustained rate I have measured, and I get the same results in my informal tests and in WinBench 97 disk benchmarks. SparQ won't be able to touch it. I doubt it will even get close to 2 MB/sec from the IDE version (or SCSI if they ever make it) and 1/10th that off the PP version. Faster than Zip, certainly the IDE version will be. Than Jaz? We'll see. Reliable? User friendly? Again, we'll see. If I ever see one in the stores for $200 + $100/3disks, I'll buy it, benchmark it, and report the results here. But if they don't come close to their stated minimum transfer rate of 3.7 MB/sec, I'll take it back. If they just meet that minimum sustained number (copying > 100MB), I'll sell all my IOM stock and IOM hardware. Rocky, in your post you said: < I am going to CompUSA this week to order a SparQ 1 Gigabyte drive for $199. Bye-bye Iomega.> Way to go! Don't wait for the reviews, the media or even the drive to be actually available, just go plunk your money down on a web page and marketing spec sheet.

To: Rocky Reid who wrote (34392)	11/4/1997 3:26:00 AM
From: Chucky	Respond to of 58324

Rocky, "I am going to CompUSA this week to order a SparQ" Which Mac did you have? Can you just use one of the FWB Hard Disk Toolkit packages to format the disk? I wouldn't mind picking up a removeable IDE device, but could you tell me what software I need to use one? Later Chucky

To: Rocky Reid who wrote (34392)	11/4/1997 11:14:00 AM
From: Trakker	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 58324

Hey Rocky, >>BTW, I have been V I N D I C A T E D.<< How's that? You the prognosticator that predicted that Iomega would tank to the low teens before it broke in to the $20's. Yeah you sure have been vindicated - in the meantime I'm just betting on leaders and making money off of the short fools. Don't fall in hate with a stock Rocky it's already cost you plenty. Anytime you care to debate something of substance please do so. BTW the name will never be WIZ, but do look for something besides n.hand and look for Iomega to discuss OEM partners at COMDEX - there's a prediction you can count on. Why? Why would Iomega feature the product at COMDEX if they hadn't answered some of the more sticking questions about the product. Keep shorting Rocky - BTW how's that COMS treating ya?

To: Rocky Reid who wrote (34392)	11/4/1997 12:51:00 PM
From: Cogito	Respond to of 58324

>>BTW, I have been V I N D I C A T E D. SparQ is true. Iomega has a big hurt coming to their margins. Will Syquest gain dominance? Maybe not, but they can still kill Iomega's margins in a price war. I am going to CompUSA this week to order a SparQ 1 Gigabyte drive for $199. Bye-bye Iomega.<< Rocky - I don't think you've been paying attention. Yes, SparQ has been officially announced. But SyQuest says it's going to be available only in parallel and EIDE versions. Which one are you going to get for your Mac? And, as I've asked before which company would you pick in a price war, the one with gross margins over 30%, or the one with gross margins under 3%? Vindicated? Maybe. But still wrong on the big issues. Leave it to you to be on the right side of a position in IOM for only a few hours. - Allen