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

To: Cogito who wrote (37172)	11/24/1997 1:17:00 AM
From: FuzzFace	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 58324

< I haven't heard of any disk shortages so far. Have you?> No, and I hope we never do. Right now, disk demand has been throttled by lack of drives. When the drive backlog has been relieved for a while, I think disk demand could possibly exceed supply. Yes Sentinel and Fuji have the capacity, but after finding out Fuji is about to make competing super-floppy disks, I wonder if there isn't some grounds for concern in say 6 months when they're ramping up for the competition. I can just them now: "Ooops, sorry KE, we just projected demand too low. We can give you half now, and half next month...teehee." I know it sounds paranoid, but I wouldn't put it past them. It has been almost a YEAR we've been waiting for those OEM drive makers (NEC and who else?) to ramp up, and that during a horrible Zip drive shortage when they could have sold all they made. And even now, after 1 year they can only make 200K drives a month? My conclusion is someone in Japan doesn't like us. And KE had better be prepared in the event of a repeat performance in 1998 with the disks. Ok, now let's assume a disk shortage won't happen. I still keep reading a sentiment here, which I characterize as dangerously greedy, that IOM must keep all the disks to themselves. Sorry, but I firmly believe Zip cannot ever replace the floppy at $10/disk. It must get down to less than $5. More like $2. And I don't think they can get it down that low in the necessary time frame and keep margins up without licensing. I would rather they license to all comers, enforce QC standards and take the royalties, thereby encouraging price reduction and universal adoption, than watch them repeat the mistakes of Apple and Sony and try to keep it all to themselves. People don't like greedy people. or greedy companies. It's not good for PR. I just hope IOM doesn't get greedy. In 3 years, if Zip disks are at $2, they will have replaced the floppy and IOM will be at 200 (pre-split). If IOM keeps things the way they are now, in 3 years, Zip will have 20% of the super-floppy market, Zip disks will be $5 and IOM will be at 30 (pre-split, not factoring in Clik!) So I say 1998 should be the year IOM shares the wealth and turns enemies into friends. They should concentrate on acceleating their momentum while they can afford to trade a little bottom line for market share, or in 6 months, someone with deep pockets will start to do it to them. Too much time has been lost already. There's not as much margin for error any more. All IMO, of course.