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

To: stock bull who wrote (49336)	3/4/1998 9:15:00 PM
From: sheila rothstein	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 58324

Stock Bull, I think that if Clik! is a useful product then there will be many co.'s trying to make a better product and compete with IOM. Don't you think there's room for more than one digital photography storage product? In addition, Clik! will have other applications in hand held devices. The tech industry is growing faster than products can be absorbed, and as soon as one buys a product there's another smaller and better one waiting in the wings. ( These are the risks we take when investing in tech stocks... where's my Valium??? I had a really rough day with CPQ.) SR

To: stock bull who wrote (49336)	3/4/1998 10:31:00 PM
From: Gottfried	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 58324

stockbull, > the big guys like IBM and Sony can apply great pressures on a smaller company like IOM, even though they got to the market first. They can out spend IOM in all areas....product development, marketing, sales, etc.< You're right, of course. Kind of amazing this hasn't happened yet. Good thing Microsoft isn't into hardware. <G> GM

To: stock bull who wrote (49336)	3/4/1998 11:53:00 PM
From: Cogito	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 58324

>>The main point of my posting, although not stated as such, is that in the commodity business some other company is always coming out with a better product than the one you just announced.<< SB - The definition of "commodity," as used in the computer hardware business, is any class of products which can be used interchangeably without regard to brand. Such as CD-ROM drives, hard drives, floppy drives, monitors, etc. Yes, you can always buy a Shark drive instead of a Zip, but Iomega's products aren't really commodities in the real sense, because you can't use a competitor's disks in an Iomega drive. SyJet disks don't work in Jaz, EZ-135 don't work in Zip. I think this is an important point. It really doesn't matter if Sony or IBM outspends Iomega in R&D or marketing. With a thing like storage, path dependency sets in after a while. You already see this with Zip. Many of the recent articles about SparQ have said, basically, that the SparQ represents a better value than Zip in some respects, but if you want to exchange data with anyone you'd better get a Zip drive. BTW, lest we forget, Zip for all its advanced age still offers a particular combination of capacity, performance, price and exchangability which is unmatched in the marketplace. If Clik! succeeds to any degree, then IBM's subsequent offerings, which will arrive significantly later and hit different capacity/price points anyway, won't be able to completely displace it. And another thing we shouldn't be forgetting is that IBM hasn't even decided for sure whether or not to go ahead with plans to produce this drive, and in fact hasn't even really started working on it. This is according to their own press release. They're just thinking about it. - Allen