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To: Chip Roos who wrote (15216)	3/26/1998 7:46:00 PM
From: Stitch	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 18056

Chip, *OT? (or is it?..I dunno) Any discussion about Syquest requires a thorough discussion about competition. The whole removable storage sector is a pretty cluttered field with competitive vendors and technologies. I have not followed it closely but note that there has been a slow down in the Iomega plant in Malaysia which is rumored to be based on yield problems with their 1.0 GB Jazz drive and declining orders due to competitive pressures from Syquest. In addition, I note that there is a new company called Touchstone, founded by ousted Syquest founder Sayed Iftikar, that plans to deliver a 1.5 GB removable at a much lesser cost of the basic drive and,more importantly, the media itself. I hear that program is going reasonably well. On top of this you have all the competition (DVD, high density flexible media, et al) vying to replace the floppy as the primary removable storage standard. This whole high capacity removable market used to be about niches...transporting image files and that kind of thing. Now it is increasingly about snagging the golden ring of becoming the next removable standard. I am sure there is a golden ring there for an investor as well but it is a very crowded and very confusing field in a very cyclical market. As such it isn't getting my attention. Best, Stitch

To: Chip Roos who wrote (15216)	3/27/1998 1:21:00 AM
From: Brian Moore	Respond to of 18056

Syquest.... zdnet.com "Look for things to heat up in the removable disk drive market as a new start-up, Castlewood Systems (Pleasanton, CA;www.castlewood systems.com), enters the fray. Its promises may be hard to fulfill, but they could potentially decimate the market. Castlewood's first product is the ORB removable-cartridge hard disk drive. Using MR technology, the company will get 2.16GB on a single platter. The clincher is that this drive is expected to sell for $199, and the blank 2.16GB cartridges will cost only $29.95 each. This goes right after the $599 Syquest 4.7GB drive, whose cartridges may sell for about $200 when it first ships."