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Non-Tech : Iomega Thread without Iomega -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Michael Coley who wrote (975)	8/11/1998 10:23:00 AM
From: Alan Rosen	Respond to of 10072

Mike, Not to split hairs, but, I think that there is more than a little room to broaden product offerings. Right now the company is too dependent of Zip related revenue. Clik! waits in the wings, but the consumer must still speak. Ditto is a small player, I think Jaz will be an industry oriented niche product and Buz is an interesting "diversion". Probably the a family of Jaz and Zip type products can and should be developed, however the company ultimately will need a "stable" of products to keep consumers interested and stay ahead of competitors and up with newer technology. Right now if you ask the average guy on the street about Iomega they may know about Zip and that is about it. I am amazed by how many "IT" types haven't even heard of Zip, Jaz or SparQ. archcc

To: Michael Coley who wrote (975)	8/11/1998 10:32:00 AM
From: Bill Lin	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10072

When Sierk and Co. took over from KE, they were spouting some nonsense about creating an organization for a $10 billion rev. company. What bilge. They have yet to match the price/performance curve (or even 2x) of the HDD industry. What is their strategic plan? Right now with Jaz 1/2, its about 3.5x (3.5 times $25/gig) for the jaz line and zip line. Don't worry too much about market confusion. ANSWER the CONSUMER's need. BUILD the RIGHT PRODUCT. and the right product is a more integrated and cheaper Zip drive (cheaper than even the ATAPI-2), and a 1 disk jaz 1 and jaz 2 and jaz 4, and jaz 6. How they do that... I haven't much clue. Removable storage is problematic because you must align the head to the platter within 1/2 second of insertion, spin up the drive, and still maintain micro inch tolerances, while maintaining cleanliness. So I expect removable to be more expensive than HDD at all times. BUT How much more... Disposable HDDs are becoming a serious threat to the Removable market for the consumer side, and the Corporate networks will soon run out of the need for sneaker netting data around. IOM has some serious issues it needs to answer in its strategic product planning. A merger with QNTM will cut costs and complement ditto products, and add good mgmt and distribution systems together. HWP and SEG are other good candidates. This follows my theme of too many independent companies out there, and there needs to be a consolidation in the industry for the DDX companies to PROSPER in the future. (HWP is my dark horse with 1% probability :) BL