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

To: Rocky Reid who wrote (56234)	6/16/1998 8:29:00 PM
From: Scott Moody	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 58324

PC expo from another point of view. Subject: PC Expo Date: Tue, Jun 16, 1998 17:24 EDT From: TMF Keeler Message-id: <1998061621244900.RAA08407@ladder01.news.aol.com> I went to PC Expo today and I have to say its pretty much "same old same old." Not much exciting in the PC industry these days. I only went because I got a free pass ;-) The biggest revelation of the day was that the Fool baseball cap is a big "chick magnet." Several female exhibitors independently commented on the cap. Being newly married this info does me no good now! If your not married you can get a Fool cap here: FOOL Ballcap Now to the serious business. I leave the serious gossip gathering and analysis to ETurkey who was there and does a great job schmoozing. I just like to drift around and see what catches my eye. That is how the average IT pro is experiencing it. Iomega's little show was by far the largest attended (only the Palm Pilot III demo was even close). The Iomega booth was crowded like in year's past and was certainly more crowded than its competitors. SyQuest was back inside the show (I saw them on a side alley outside last year). I wonder how many shares they sold to afford the floor space? LOL Sony had a HiFD demonstration going and an external and two internal drives. The external HiFD is actually bigger than the PP LS-120 if you can believe it. The internal fits into the Vaio floppy bay as far as I could tell. They ran some video off an internal HiFD (according to them); but of course who knows how close to functioning it actually is. The demo said the HiFD will be out in the Fall. So much for Spring 98 release. Imation was still pushing the LS-120 and Castlewood had a very small booth off to the side. The orb is a black round thing. In-Focus was pushing its projector that is part of the Microsoft, Iomega, Compaq, and In Focus deal. The projector doesn't actually connect to the Clik drive. The Clik drive connects to the Windows CE based handheld PC from Compaq that connects to the projector. Iomega had a section devoted just to customer service at the booth, that is new. Microtech was in the Iomega booth selling its Mii and seemed very happy to be there. VST and CNF were not in the Iomega booth this year. The Iomega presence in the Compaq booth was very impressive compared to year's past (which isn't saying too much since it was zero LOL). Most of the Presarios and a few of the laptops had Zip Buiilt-In. Most of the NEC Powermate computers had Zip Built-In. The literature identified them as Iomega Zip drives. There was a working Clik drive (working half the day at least) in the Iomega booth which is new and good to see. As a matter of fact, more was being done with the Clik than with the HiFD in the Sony demo. In other words, the Clik was being used attached to a h/pc (handheld PC) while Sony only was running video. The general impression I got was that the Clik in June 98 is where the laptop Zip was in June 97. "Second half" was the mantra. There were Clik drives in the Microsoft, In Focus, and Compaq booths (not connected to anything though). I also got the idea that there will be two Clik products sold at retail. "Clik for Digital Cameras" and "Clik for Mobile Computing." The main difference is that the latter comes with a Flash Card reader. Not sure how much more it will cost. The Flash card reader connects to the front of the Clik and has an LCD display (for what I can only guess). TMF Keeler Patrick Keeler A Fool and his money are soon partying

To: Rocky Reid who wrote (56234)	6/16/1998 8:31:00 PM
From: Scott Moody	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 58324

And another point of view. Subject: PC Expo Reort Date: Tue, Jun 16, 1998 18:16 EDT From: D Turkey Message-id: <1998061622165400.SAA15435@ladder01.news.aol.com> Spent the day wandering through PC Expo here in Fun City. Some comments. I'll try not to duplicate what the bro will post, as he took more notes than me. Had a nice chat with Tyler Thatcher of Investor Relations. Some points: Zip drives have a margin of %5-%15, while disks have a margin of %40-%60. ( I know I should have asked for more details on this, like internal vs. external, gross vs. net, but I was just so suprised to actually hear numbers of any sort, I forgot. Guess he took me by suprise :) ) Iomega is making efforts to improve Wall Street relations. Sigma Six efforts could reduce costs by up to %50 I asked if NEC would be helping to market/expand the spread of the Clik market. He said the NEC deal to license Clik drives is, like the Zip deal, a manufacturing deal. If they want to do Clik marketing is up to them. They're free to chase OEM's as they see fit. Clik Stuff Clik has a sizeable presence in the Iomega booth, as expected. Unfortunately the current setup as they have displayed doesn't seem as elegant and idiot-proof as it could be. When Clik first hits the market, the process for using it with a digital camera will go something like this: Pictures got shot onto a flash card. When the card is full you take it out of the camera and put it into the Clik drive, which will have a Flash card reader attached, and download the pictures to the Clik disk. Once back at your computer the Clik drive goes into a caddy/stand, which is plugged into the parallel port through some sort of conversion box. The whole setup, including Clik drive, one disk, Flash card attachment and converter box is suppose to cost under $200. But it seems like more pieces than it should be. The In-focus(?)/Microsoft/Clik overhead projector package that was suppose to ship in June will ship, minus the Clik drive, which will ship in the 2nd half. There is no new Clik competition out there. Nothing but the same little Flash cards we've already seen. There are digital cameras EVERYWHERE. MegaPixel models are coming on big. But nobody outside the Iomega booth could/would talk about Clik as a future storage option. Whether it's because the particular person I talked to in each booth didn't know about it, they were told not to say anything, or, most likely, they simply didn't see any point in talking about a product that isn't out and might or might not work with their product, I couldn't tell you. Zip Stuff Sony: Won't commit to a thing. The HiFD will ship "sometime in the second half", it's cost will be "competitive with what's out there", it "probably will be included in some of Sony's computers". They did, however, have a working drive up and running. Imation Claims 2 million LS-120's sold. They were handing out $100 rebate coupons on $150 drives. Had a really pathetic looking guy on stage in a huge SuperDrive disk costume. His parents can't be very proud of him tonight. Caleb Technology Yet another company with a floppy compatible high capacity drive. A tiny booth downstairs in the low rent section of the show. 144MB disks that are all magnetic. None of the magnetic/optical combination that Imation and Sony are going with. They had a working model up and running. Expected ship dates-by the end of the year. No big marketing plans yet. Looks like a pretty small outfit, but the guy we chatted with claims going all magnetic gives them a big speed advantage over the magnetic/optical combo's. Expected price: "well under" $100 for the drive, under $10 for the disk. Going all magnetic lets them make it so cheap, so they say. Castlewood A joke of a booth. A tiny spot near Iomega on the edge of the show. One guy working the PC who had trouble shutting off the shoot-em-up game that was running so he could show up the drive. With help he finally got the game off and was able to show a working 2.1GB Orb drive. Microtech International's Mii Zip 100 drive looks very cool. No power cord. A nice looking product. More later as the mood strikes me. Dan www.turkewitz.com