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

To: Zakrosian who wrote (48540)	2/22/1998 11:34:00 AM
From: Jeff Jordan	Respond to of 58324

Old News? I didn't see it here? Friday February 20 4:02 PM EST Iomega, despite challenges, still a hot seller SAN FRANCISCO (Wired) - Despite shareholder and consumer product challenges, Iomega is still selling storage devices like hotcakes -- and getting its name in front of new potential users' eyes. The company's net income doubled from $57 million in fiscal 1996 to $115 million in 1997. "They went from nothing to owning a market," said Joe Besecker, president of Emerald Research, a securities investment firm in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. "I have great faith in management and in their long-term strategy. They've gone a long way toward becoming the standard." Wolfgang Schlichting, an analyst at International Data Corp., agreed. "Iomega has been doing very well in their market niche for a very long time," said Schlichting. Iomega commands 11 percent of the overall market for removable storage devices and media -- a field that includes CD-ROMs. The Zip drive has reached near ubiquity as the high-capacity disk technology of choice, with 87 percent of that market, Schlichting said. Even the Jaz drive, which faces tough competition from Syquest's Syjet and Quest drives, leads the high-capacity, removable magnetic storage market, with 62 percent of market share. "There is new competition coming, but they've already raised the bar very high for anyone moving into this market," said Fara Yale, an analyst at Dataquest. While Yale won't go so far as to say that Iomega has cornered the market as the floppy-drive replacement of the future, "Iomega has momentum in its favor, and any new product coming into that space will have an uphill battle." For Emerald's Besecker, the company's troubles of the past months can be summed up as growing pains. "Overall, you can't call into question the results of the last couple of years," he said. "The class-action suits and such, those are just part of a maturation phase when you're going from tens of millions to billions in sales."