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

To: Reseller who wrote (50855)	3/21/1998 2:11:00 PM
From: FuzzFace	Respond to of 58324

Reseller, I tend to agree with you about Herb. He was "right" about the stock price demise, but for all the wrong reasons. He harped on Jaz, which obviously was not the engine of IOM's growth or the reason for their fall. Taking credit for predicting their fall based on Jaz problems is like a witch doctor taking credit for his patient's recovery - pretty laughable when you know the real reasons. Like many here, I think it's now up to IOM to prove they got the right stuff again. My opinion is they must start dropping the price of Zip drives to the point where no one ever wants to deal with floppies again. License the drives, license the disks. Start taking royalties. Yes I know some believe they should keep it all to themselves, but I think that has been their undoing. No one wanted to help Zip since IOM was so greedy. Now IOM must share the wealth from a position of weakness, instead of from one of strength. Letting it slip that far was a cardinal sin. Taking the relatively smaller royalties from disk sales will be a comedown, but it must be done sooner rather than later. Then with that revenue stream in place, they can concentrate on the next removable storage breakthrough. In the meantime, they should bury Buz, clock Clik, dump Ditto and reject Recordit, as these are either has-beens, never-weres or just too little too late. They've got to stop moving away from their core competancy and start getting products out in time - preferably before they become obsolete. They took to heart all the criticism about being a one-trick-pony and dissipated themselves on non-starters. And they MUST stop that $100M ad campaign before they flush all their capital, capital much better spent on R&D on the next gen (hopefilly GMR) Zip/Jaz/Clik. Or if they must advertise, the money is much better spent on radio and print, rather than TV. They can continue to milk Jaz for all it's worth, but must be prepared to dump it when the next gen product of their own obsoletes it. There may be no way to win in the current removable storage market, But clearly, IOM's strategy, like their stock, was a winner that has turned into a loser. They must change the strategy. I still think Zip can replace the floppy, but they must first admit their mistakes, and start doing whatever it takes. But like an alcoholic, they probably must first hit bottom before they will admit they have a potentially fatal problem. I think that bottom will coincide with the stock hitting 5 1/2. When it gets there, the defeat will be so great and the pressure to change will be so irresistable, there may be a big management shakeup. So I'm watching and waiting for 5 1/2. P.S. Of course, I could be all wrong. Or like Herb, right for the wrong reasons, but though I'm bearish on IOM for the short term, I still like the spunky company from Roy long term. I hope it's not misplaced loyalty.