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

To: Gottfried who wrote (52657)	4/16/1998 1:48:00 PM
From: Ben Antanaitis	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 58324

1:04PM EDT theStreet.com publishes a 'no new news' article on IOM under The Bear Hunt banner. Just to keep up it's dedicated effort to.... what? Ben A.

To: Gottfried who wrote (52657)	4/16/1998 1:50:00 PM
From: BBG	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 58324

ALL: Thought you'd like to read the latest on IOMEGA from The Street.com" Nothing new except I didn't realize that EPS estimates are -.06. I thought they were -.03 Bear Hunt: Earnings Preview: Can Iomega Become Profitable Again? By Eric Moskowitz Staff Reporter 4/16/98 1:04 PM ET Iomega (IOM:NYSE) reports after today's close and expectations couldn't be lower. For the first time in three years, the company is expected to report a loss, and its highflying CEO, Kim Edwards, has recently departed. "The company is hurting from a combination of a shortfall in sales and an increase in incremental ad spending," says Glenn Hanus, an analyst with Needham who lowered his rating to a hold in December. Some of the sales shortfall has more to do with an increase in sales for its main competitor, Syquest Technology (SYQT:Nasdaq), says Hanus, than anything else. "I've been hearing from stores that the sales momentum for Syquest's SparQ and SyJet drives has been favorable." (Hanus hasn't participated in any of Iomega's public offerings.) Now that Edwards is out, it not only leaves a vacuum at the top, but it creates a quandary for Iomega: What should it do about its ad budget? Edwards was a great marketer, and he had allocated $100 million for ads this fiscal year to promote the company's new one-gig Jaz drives. The ad campaign, however, was not going that well and was overshadowed by a resurgence in Syquest's comparable SparQ drive. When TSC last profiled the company, Iomega made it clear that its ad spending was hurting the company's bottom line. That was one of the main reasons it gave for pushing down Street expectations for its March quarter. Before the company preannounced a month ago, analysts had hoped for a 9-cent-per-share March quarter, the same number it posted in 1997's first quarter. Now, consensus estimates call for a 6-cent-per-share loss for the struggling disk-drive maker. Iomega's stock also hasn't been helped by the ad campaign, which began with four $1 million-plus spots at the Super Bowl at the end of January. The shares are down 41% year-to-date. It will be interesting to see what Iomega management have to say about the ad budget at the conference call this evening. JD