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Technology Stocks : Imation (IMN) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Frank Buck who wrote (27)	4/1/1998 9:41:00 PM
From: Ronald Ashkenazy	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 103

Hi Frank. You ask a lot of good questions. I'm definitely no authority, but I'll throw in my 2 cents. You might also consider calling Imation Investor Relations at 1-888-466-3456 from 7am to 6:30pm CST and see what data they might be willing to release. All 7 inquiring minds on this forum want to know. ;^) >>>>>Is the medical archiving side of the business generating the bulk of the current revenues? ...what percentages of revenues are currently derived from the SuperDrive and the medical archiving side of the business? Projected changes in expected revenues...as a result of SuperDrive sales....vrs. medical archiving sales etc.<<<<< These quotes aren't very recent or complete but they're all I have to contribute: February 04, 1997 "Our four new product platforms -- DryView(TM) laser imagers, Travan(TM) data cartridges, Rainbow(TM) color proofing systems and LS-120 diskettes -- constituted 15.6 percent of revenue in the quarter and 11.3 percent for 1996, consistent with our plan for the year," Monahan said. "Customer interest and demand accelerated across all four platforms in the fourth quarter. We are well positioned to continue the momentum, as we look to these four new product platforms to reach our goal of 20 percent of revenue in 1997." Bill Monahan, Imation Chairman and CEO Oct. 30, 1997 "We are experiencing positive response to our higher capacity data storage solutions being introduced, including SuperDisk(TM) and Travan(TM) NS series cartridges, and with the continued success of our DryView(TM) medical imaging products, which now has an installed base of more than 3,000 units," Bill Monahan, Imation Chairman and CEO >>>>>info regarding insider sales or buys<<<<< Don't know for sure but you can try: insidertrader.com As you probably already know, the SEC reports are available here: (Apparently, insider trading is reported to the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) on Form 4s and Form 144s) freeedgar.com >>>>>Does IMN pay or get paid a percentage of sales to anyone for licensing rights?<<<<< I always assumed they did, but I'll defer to Investor Relations at 1-888-466-3456 from 7am to 6:30pm CST >>>>>My feel is that Iomega is feeling the presence of various new back-up technologies and is therefore launching a large European ad-campaign to stimulate sales of their devices<<<<< Iomega is having it's problems (untimely and possibly forced resignation of CEO who was largely credited for the success of the company, very expensive and possibly unsuccessful ad campaign, class action lawsuits regarding poor technical support, reliability questions of the Zip disks). My interest in IMN was engendered more by its spin-off status from a blue chip company than by it's LS-120 venture. Unlike Boeing and it's 747, I don't think Imation bet the company on LS-120. My gut feeling is that LS-120 is a transition product and the window of opportunity to dominate the market was missed by about a year. I am encouraged a little by the slim-line LS-120 floppy drive (12.7-by-96-by-124 millimeters) designed for use in notebook PCs. Competition is fairly limited and since notebooks don't have room for 2 drives, LS-120 backward compatibility is a big plus. But the demand for removable storage in general has been altered by the Internet. People can email attach or anonymous ftp files to their friends or colleagues instead of transferring them to a floppy and mailing or delivering them. And even 120 MB is somewhat limiting with large multimedia files or presentations. Also the competition has become extensive. There are 22 options in Removable Storage according to the April 21, 1998 issue of PC Magazine: zdnet.com By the way, Imation SuperDisk LS-120 won first place in the category of best way to SHUTTLE FILES BETWEEN HOME AND OFFICE zdnet.com "Key considerations: Low drive cost. Since you don't want to carry a drive back and forth, just the media, you want an inexpensive drive you can have at both locations. " but didn't win the overall title: zdnet.com But Imation isn't sitting on their hands: Message 2330352 "The magneto-optical disk camp is led by Imation Corp. of the United States and an international consortium of 15 firms that are jointly developing the 6GB advanced storage magneto optical(ASMO) disk. The group has set the year 1998 as the target launch date for the disk. Whatever paths they have chosen, the manufacturers are in a hurry. What is at stake is the leadership of the multibillion dollar market for next-generation storage devices." >>>>>IMN has also commenced some heavy advertising domestically<<<<< biz.yahoo.com >>>>>Are there other manufacturers of the 120 meg disk and comparable drives?<<<<< LS-120 laser servo technology was developed jointly by OR Technology, Compaq Computer Corp. (CPQ), Imation and Matsushita-Kotobuki Electronics Industries Ltd. (MKE) (6783 JP). In addition to these key companies, OR Technology's manufacturing partners include Kaifa Group, Mitsubishi Electric Corp. (6503 JP) and Maxell Corp. OR Technology ortechnology.com OR Technology, with headquarters in Campbell, sells, designs and manufactures data storage products using laser servo technology for which it holds significant patents. OR Technology markets the a:drive, a product compatible with current floppy diskettes that stores up to 120MB of data on a single diskette. For additional information on OR Technology and its products, contact OR Technology, 42 W. Campbell Ave., Campbell, Calif., 95008; phone: 408/866-3000; fax: 408/866-3008; fax back system: 888/286-6422. World Wide Web: www.ortechnology.com . The BIG THREAT: zdnet.com "Sony's 200MB HiFD drive could become the standard if adopted later this year. 200MB formatted capacity on proprietary 3.5-inch disks can read and write standard 3.5-inch, 1.44MB floppy disks This could be widely adopted as a replacement for the standard 1.44MB floppy disk (leapfrogging the LS-120 and the Zip), as it is large enough for near-line storage and fast enough for multimedia. Sony made its 3.5-inch floppy disk the standard last time around, and it could duplicate the feat. " >>>>>What would be a good target price range for entry into IMN?<<<<< I don't have a good answer for you. To a certain extent, all bets are off in this raging bull market that has largely ignored fundamentals and trades on momentum and greed. The strong dollar in Europe has hurt and continues to hurt the bottom line for Imation, but there should be some comfort and insurance in knowing that IMN can be bought below it's book value. Book Value $20.82 Price/Book 0.88 Wealth of information on IMN: dailystocks.com Nice computin' with ya, Ron