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

To: Dale Stempson who wrote (47263)	2/9/1998 12:45:00 AM
From: Gemini	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 58324

Dale and to all, With the zillions of posts we get in this thread, I'm not sure if this has been mentioned, but it's worth the post. I recently received Dell Computer's February catalog for the home/office. Of the seven desktop models offered, FOUR come with in internal Iomega Zip as standard equipment. The remaining three desktops offer the Zip as an option. This is very significant since Dell sells more desktops to companies than any other computer manufacturer I believe. Which leads to additional sales of Zip drives when the corporate individual likes what he sees and buys one or two for his home use. Dell does not offer the Zip for its laptops -- just the 3.5 inch floppy, which makes no sense at all to this reader. It's only a matter of time when that feature changes as well. Allan

To: Dale Stempson who wrote (47263)	2/9/1998 10:38:00 AM
From: Cogito	Respond to of 58324

>>Sony will be showing its new HiFD floppy drive, with a 200MB capacity and a 3.6MB per second transfer rate.<< Dale - What I'll be interested in is whether they are showing a fully functioning prototype, or if it's still only getting 60MB for HiFD disks, and still unable to actually read/write regular floppies. It's my understanding that that was the state of the 1 prototype shown at Comdex. - Allen

To: Dale Stempson who wrote (47263)	2/9/1998 10:52:00 AM
From: AreWeThereYet	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 58324

Dale, Rocky and all >> It's interesting to me to hear confirmation of pricing "competitive with Zip drives." I wonder what Zip drives will be selling for this summer when the HiFD is expected to ship. Perhaps I'll call Sony. << Perhaps you should call IOM because Sony's strategy is going to price the HiFD based on how much Zip is selling. What I am really interesting to know is will it priced cheaper, equal or slightly higher than Zip. If it "cheaper" than some serious threat will be posed on Zip because it is the ideal solution (reduce peripheral count, bigger, faster, cheaper). If it is priced above the Zip then we'll have to see who has the better marketing muscle. About Rocky's assertion that CD had replace floppy, here are my opinions: 1) CD has replaced floppy in the s/w distribution aspect but not for portable data storage and data transfer between computer because it can't write. 2) Whatever replace floppy in the future, it must support one type of "cheap media". The "cheap media" doesn't has to be over 100MB, couple MB will do but it must cost no more than 2-3 bucks on the street and less than 2 bucks for mass production (for s/w distribution). This is why the backward compatible solution like LS-120 and HiFD has the advantage because floppy is cheap. IOM may create a low-cost 5MB version of Zip to achieve similar result. 3) Zip hasn't top out, it is still one candidate to become the next-gen floppy but so does the LS-120 and the coming HiFD. Out of the 3, I will say HiFD has highest potential but only if it is market properly. At last, I want to thanks whoever posted the link of an article "'Removable storage' is zipping along". sjmercury.com It is a nice summary of what we have in the removable storage market today. Best of all, it is unbias to any solution. aC