NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 13, 1997--
Iomega Plans to Revolutionize the Way Consumers Use Digital
Cameras, Hand-held Computers, PDAs, Printers and Other Consumer
Products
Iomega Corp. (NYSE:IOM) Thursday introduced the clik!(TM) family
of low-cost, high-capacity removable storage products built with
Iomega's highly mobile n-hand(TM) technology platform.
The clik! product family is designed to enable entirely new
generations of products and applications, bringing unprecedented
removable storage to existing and future portable digital products,
including digital cameras, hand-held computers, personal digital
assistants and smart cellular phones.
The clik! product family was unveiled today at a press conference
in New York. The announcement was accompanied by endorsements from
industry leaders, including Kodak, HP, Hitachi, Microsoft, Polaroid,
Motorola, Matsushita, Citizen and Texas Instruments.
The clik! product suite includes:
-- Clik! drives -- Portable, low-cost external drives that can be
used with virtually any digital portable or desktop product. Small
enough to fit in a shirt pocket, the mobile clik! drive is a perfect
storage companion for today's hand-held devices.
-- Clik! drives for OEMs -- A miniaturized, low-cost, low-power
version of the drive will be available for manufacturers to build into
portable digital products, ranging from digital cameras to hand-held
computers and printers.
-- Clik! disks -- 40 megabyte removable and reusable disks that
are about half the size of a credit card. The clik! disks will sell
for a suggested retail price of $9.95 (U.S.) each, providing the most
affordable, high-capacity storage solutions for portable digital
products. A single clik! disk can store approximately 40 high quality
(megapixel) digital photographs, 400 10-page Microsoft(R) Word
documents, or 25 10-page Microsoft PowerPoint(R) presentations with
graphics.
-- Clik! accessories -- Ultra-lightweight accessories to allow
customers to use the clik! drive anywhere. The accessories include a
rechargeable battery pack, additional docking stations to enable high
speed connectivity back to a desktop computer, a method to transfer
data from current flash memory cards, such as those used in Kodak
digital cameras, and other adapters designed to ensure that clik!
drives can be connected to virtually any portable digital product.
"The potential market impact of clik! drives is significant,"
said Crawford Del Prete, vice president, IDC Storage Research. "The
absence of affordable storage for ultra-portable and consumer products
has been a gating factor in market acceptance. Clik! drives provide a
missing piece of the puzzle, opening a whole new array of applications
for these products."
The clik! product family will impact multiple markets, including:
-- Digital Cameras -- Clik! drives and disks are designed to
bring the traditional film model to digital photography. For the first
time, users of digital cameras will be able to take unlimited
near-35mm quality (megapixel) pictures using reusable clik! disks.
Today, customers can only take a small number of high quality
photographs with a digital camera before they must download the images
to a computer. In addition to removing the tie to the computer, clik!
disks will deliver a "roll of digital film" for a suggested retail
price of $9.95, making digital pictures potentially less expensive
than the cost of traditional film plus processing.
-- Hand-held Personal Computers (HPCs) and Personal Digital
Assistants (PDAs) -- Clik! disks are designed to bring desktop
capabilities to HPCs and PDAs, providing the storage needed to run
Microsoft PowerPoint, receive email attachments and cache web pages.
Additionally, the clik! drive is expected to connect to virtually any
HPC, desktop or notebook computer to enable customers to easily
synchronize information between portable products and back to the
computer.
-- Printers and Presentation Projectors -- The clik! drive is
designed so that customers will be able to connect the clik! drive
directly to the next generation of printers and projectors to print or
display information stored on clik! disks. This process will be
further streamlined when printer and projector manufacturers adopt
internal clik! drives.
Other products that could benefit from Iomega's new clik! product
family include smart cellular phones, global positioning systems
(GPS), electronic tracking systems and hand-held games.
"This product family offers a significant breakthrough in the
ongoing evolution of handheld computing, bringing broad new
application possibilities to portable products," said Dennis Hamann,
worldwide marketing manager of HP's Asia Pacific PC Division. "By
removing the limitations of portable digital products with a storage
solution that can work across all products, clik! drives will expand
the usability and ultimate appeal of these products."
In a separate announcement, CNF Incorporated stated that it plans
to build a version of the clik! drive next year. Additionally,
Microsoft, Digital Equipment, InFocus Systems, LSI Logic, Sierra
Imaging and many other leading companies issued endorsements and
supporting statements for the clik! drives and disks. (See separate
releases.)
"Iomega's clik! product family will extend the functionality of
today's HPCs, and future Windows CE devices, by offering affordable,
removable storage," said Harel Kodesh, general manager of Microsoft's
Consumer Appliances Group. "We are excited about working closely with
Iomega to integrate the power of the clik! drive with Windows CE to
deliver new capabilities."
"We want the digital photography experience as accessible to
consumers as traditional photography," said Jeff Peters, general
manager, Digital Imaging in Kodak's Digital Applied Imaging business.
"Iomega's introduction of the clik! drives with access for our compact
flash media is a major advance in this direction. These products will
enable more customers to take, use and store high quality digital
pictures more easily."
Iomega also announced today the formation of the Mobile Storage
Division to meet the needs of the digital imaging and portable
products markets. The Mobile Storage Division will develop and market
the clik! drives, disks and accessories.
Iomega President and Chief Executive Officer, Kim Edwards, said
that the evolution of the n-hand technology introduced last year, to
the higher capacity, full product family announced today came about
from ongoing discussions with manufacturers across all portable
digital product markets.
"Last year, we introduced our n-hand technology platform with the
idea that we would work with manufacturers to further define and bring
products to market based on this platform," said Kim Edwards. "Through
those efforts, we have been able to develop a product that offers
twice the capacity of our original plan at the announced price, giving
consumers and manufacturers highly adaptable and affordable portable
storage. This enables high-quality digital photography for the mass
market and provides PDAs and other mobile information appliances with
virtually unlimited storage."
The company plans to begin U.S. shipments of clik! drives and
clik! disks to manufacturers and channel partners in the second half
of 1998 with shipments in Europe and Asia beginning soon thereafter.
Matsushita Communications Industrial Co. Ltd and Citizen Watch Co.
Ltd. today announced that they have signed of letters of intent to
license, manufacture and sell clik! drives.
Iomega's clik! drives are designed to bring unlimited storage to
portable digital products through 40 megabyte clik! disks. The
lightweight clik! drive is designed to be an ideal storage companion
for today's portable products, from digital cameras and HPCs to PDAs
and smart cellular phones. And, with the potential to connect to
virtually any portable digital or desktop product, customers will be
able to easily share information between products and synchronize it
back to a desktop computer.
The clik! product family will give customers the Capacity to Do
More(TM), such as storing unlimited near-35mm (megapixel) quality
pictures on digital cameras and facilitating the use of desktop
applications like Microsoft PowerPoint and Microsoft Excel on
hand-held computers. The clik! drives will be available at retail for
a suggested price under $200 (U.S.) and the clik! disks will be
available for suggested retail price of $9.95 (U.S.).
Iomega Corp. provides personal computer storage solutions that
help people manage their computer stuff -- anywhere. These solutions
include: Zip(TM) drives and disks; Jaz(R) one gigabyte drives and
disks; and Ditto(TM) tape backup drives and tape cartridges. Used in
homes, business, government and education, and by creative
professionals, Iomega storage solutions are available through computer
retail stores, resellers, major distributors and OEMs. The company can
be reached at 1-800-MY-STUFF (800-697-8833), iomega.com,
and additional Iomega press releases can be accessed through the
toll-free fax-back line: (888-88-IOMEGA).
Special note: Statements concerning the expected availability and
pricing of the clik! product family ,the market demand for and the
impact of these products and their ability to interface with the next
generation of portable products are forward-looking statements. There
are a number of important factors that could cause actual events to
differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking
statements, including market acceptance of, and demand for, the
Company's drive and removable media products, manufacturing,
development and distribution issues, product pricing, competition,
intellectual property rights, litigation, general economic conditions
and other risks identified in Iomega's prospectus filed in June 1996,
its annual report for 1996 on Form 10K, and its more recent quarterly
report on Form 10Q filed with the SEC.
NOTE TO EDITORS: Iomega, Jaz and the Iomega logo are registered
trademarks of and Zip, Ditto, n-hand, clik! and the Capacity to Do
More are trademarks of Iomega Corp. All other products and brand names
are the property of their respective companies.
CONTACT: Iomega Corp., Roy, Utah
Anne Haggar, 801/778-3347
ahaggar@iomega.com
Tyler Thatcher, 801/778-4362 (Analysts/Investors)
thatcher@iomega.com
or
Copithorne & Bellows
Heather Staples, 415/975-2236
heather.staples@cbpr.com
or
Porter Novelli
Dan Ginsburg, 212/601-8020
dginsburg@porternovelli.com
KEYWORD: UTAH NEW YORK
INDUSTRY KEYWORD: COMPUTERS/ELECTRONICS COMED PRODUCT
Today's News On The Net - Business Wire's full file on the Internet
with Hyperlinks to your home page.
URL: businesswire.com
Copyright 1997, Business Wire |
