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

To: KM who wrote (41441)	12/24/1997 12:21:00 AM
From: Naggrachi	Respond to of 58324

Dr. IOMEGA, are you out there. I (I'm sure others as well) have got the blues and sure could use a comment or two from you. Even if it's something we already know about. Zead

To: KM who wrote (41441)	12/24/1997 12:24:00 AM
From: Neil_L	Respond to of 58324

FWIW, Looking at a 5 year chart of IOM shows it rising 9 months in a row...until December, where we sit down 3 15/16...a lot of ground to cover in order to keep the string alive.

To: KM who wrote (41441)	12/24/1997 12:41:00 AM
From: Lurker	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 58324

Greetings All: I just finished reading the last couple of days of the Motley Fool Iomega summaries. They have been discussing the Nomai disks a lot. In particular, they have been discussing Iomega's retroreflector vs. Nomai's concave mirror. This has resulted in two things. (1) My brain hurts from reading all that technical jargon over and over again. (2) I am convinced that Nomai's disks are DOA. There is no way that Nomai can successfully market their disks. Iomega's disk margin is safe. Iomega uses a retroreflector that reflects diffuse light. Nomai uses a concave mirror that concentrates light on one point. If you ever tried to burn a blade of grass with a magnifying glass, you know how you have to angle the magnifying glass (concave) just right to concentrate the light on the blade of grass. Iomega's method doesn't use this principle. In the original Zip drives (non-laptop), the drive head and the disk reflector are 13 mm apart. Nomai made their disks with concave mirrors, since the retroreflector-on-a-disk is patented by Iomega and Nomai cannot use it. Now, as long as the head stays 13 mm from the reflector, Nomai's concave mirror, calibrated for 13 mm, will work. However, if the head is moved closer or farther to/from the reflector, the head won't be where the concave mirror is relecting the light. This happens in the laptop Zips because the drive is only 12.7 mm high. So, the head must be closer to the reflector. Therefore, Iomega Zip Disks work (with their retroreflector) and Nomai's clones (with their concave mirror) don't work. If Nomai gets a favorable ruling and is allowed to sell zip disk clones with its concave mirror, Iomega can retaliate. They can simply move the distance between the heads and the relectors periodically. Each batch of Zip drives with distances that don't = 13 mm will not work with Nomai disks, but will still work fine with regular zip drives. I don't see how Nomai disks could be sold with this limitation. Currently, there is no technical method to overcome this obstacle. They would have to have a warning such as: "Works with non-laptop 100Meg drives made before 1998." This is a stagnant market. Of course, with Nomai's small production capability, this may be all they want. However, the number of returned disks might hurt their profit margin - especially if people write on the disk label before they try the disk (I always do.) The store will have trouble selling these written-on disks. They will either quit carrying Nomai disks to prevent these returns, or return the disks to Nomai (which has to be expensive). So, I go to bed tonight confident that the disk clone issue doesn't exist. Mike