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

To: rickyc who wrote (53766)	4/28/1998 2:05:00 PM
From: Ken Pomaranski	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 58324

This is a very strange statement: << My problem with Rocky's and other company critics is that they have a bad habit of stating their opinions as definite fact - never just their off-the-wall wild guess >> All you have to do is look at the balance sheet, look at revenue/profit breakdowns, listen to CCs, and you'll get the following: (1) Iomega is a ONE PRODUCT company. They will live or die based upon this one product. Pull out these revenues, and the company is bankrupt, pure and simple. (2) They are not profitable selling this product anymore. Now why is that??? Because the mix has gone from retail aftermarket to OEM. Also, the techheads (early adopters) are saturated with disks. (3) How many disks do the people who find one of these devices in their computers buy? maybe 1-2 if Iomega is LUCKY. Most people will ignore the slot. With 4Gbyte hard disks standard, who needs a measly 100Mbytes to store stuff off on? Can't see 'Joe six-pack' going out and spending $100 on a 'GIGAPACK'. Shoot, this will be 1/5 the purchase price of computer before you know it. Joe can buy 30 6-packs with this money! (4) ZIP is old technology. period. This will impact sales at some point. (5) Yes, ZIP is the 'standard', but WHO CARES? They can't make money off being the 'standard'. Who cares how many ZIP units have been sold? If Iomega can't make a profit, its irrelevent. (6) What could possibly cause a pickup in ZIP sales? It's past the product maturity curve from marketing 101. Drop prices? IOM makes less money. Advertise to stimulate demand? They lose more money. Quite simply: There is nothing that I can forsee that would enable IOM to make a profit off ZIPs anymore. Yes, this is my opinion, but it has basis in fact if you just look at the numbers, and ignore the 'story'. The bulls focus too much on the 'story'. I GRANT YOU THE STORY, but stories are cheap... (7) CLIK! is unproven, and any bulls counting on this product are gambling, plain and simple. Using this argument is not investing at all.. Let me ask all the bulls one question: Lets say you were looking to invest some money. You wanted to make some money off your investment. You start researching company 'A'. Company 'A' had awesome growth in the past, but you determine that it was all due to one product. You also notice that the company doesn't make money off this product anymore. There is competition mounting. Company 'A' has this new product in the wings, 1+ years out. This is their only hope. Do you commit funds now, or do you wait to see the 'splash' this new product will make? Also, you know that if this new product fails, the company is gone. What do you do?? Anyway, good luck to all of you.. kp