<Thanks for bringing over that post from the MF board. It was great!
About the Sony HiFD Recall:
Bob B.,
Below is an another post from the MF board by that same knowledgeable poster. This post deals with the Sony HiFD situation....we'll see if he is right about the Sony HiFD not coming back.
That post is followed by two additional poster's comments that I felt were noteworthy.
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With speculation being the name of the game in both business and
investment's. I want to offer up my opinion...
Sony will not reintroduce the HiFD drive... period.....
When the head (not drive but management) of Sony's HiFD quit retired?)
and joined Iomega volumes were spoken...momentum is probably what kept
Sony moving forward to release the drive at all.
While the Sony Maciva Camera is cool it really is just a prototype for
a Clik!ed camera.... but I think Sony got big eyes (because of
Iomega's success) and started to think "Holy smoke!, if we can control
and own the next floppy standard we'll be hot chit!"
What they missed is that while the Maciva is popular it is because of
the concept, not the actual implementation...in the test of time it's doomed, I would guess they saw that writing on the wall and decided to
"invent" a new Superfloppy to soup it up....but, and this is the key,
EGO got in the way and they reached too far.
There was a big survey sponsored by Imation (in 1997) that asked
skewed questions about PC owners needing a floppy, Imation touted it
(and still does) to justify their position, If you look at the
results of that flawed survey you can easily be convinced that floppy
compatibly is mandatory in any new standard, I think it's possible
the OEM's have also been mislead by this same survey.... but that's
another post...
So here they (Sony) are....they didn't really rush HiFD to market
since it was about a year late (but now they say it was originally
due in spring 98 when it was first promised in fall 97, but I guess
they wanted it to be perfect :-).
Anyway, with a drive spinning that fast it has to (as in must) rely
on the Bernoulli effect to warp the media under the head, this is
easier said then done, as we see from the recall (LS-120 spins slow
so isn't an issue for them, and the LS-120 head is in contact with
and scrapes over the media just like the old, slow spinning floppy).
Sony siting the angle of the head as the problem really is laughable,
but that too is a topic for a separate, poking, jabbing and making
fun of them post.
I hope Iomega makes them sweat bullets and even charges them a premium
when they ask for zip to put it back in their PC line....that is if
their PC line survives.
In a nut shell...I see no hope for the HiFD reemerging from this
recall with a different angle on the head, spinning media at high
speed creates turbulence and like anything else experiencing
turbulence every once in a while it will have to shake, it's not the
heads hitting the media as Sony says, but instead it's the media
hitting the heads.
HiFD is doomed....
Making a high speed, high density floppy isn't as easy as everyone
thinks....lucky for the PC market and users everywhere there is a zip
drive that can do what is almost....well....Impossible... :):):):)
Sony's only edge was size.. if there was any transfer rate advantage
Sony sure discounted it, and in fact removed it by offering the drive
in only a parallel port external. Being trumped by zip 250, which
is fast, must be a bitch... but selling only 100 (well... under 100)
drives in almost 2 months (how many CompUSA stores are there?) is
total and undeniable humiliation far and above the recall.
No one likes being humiliated, and I am sure heads will roll at Sony
over this ugly little incident. I don't know what HiFD R&D,
development and ramp up costs totaled, and I bet we never find out,
but it wasn't chump change I'm sure.
One thing is certain, Sony sampled the market using the largest
computer store on the planet....and sold 100 drives in some 60 days.
Maybe Sony will try again, I don't know how persistent they will be
but I bet any new HiFD has much slower rotation speed (and that may
be all they need to do to make it actually work) I think 1400 RPMs is
the fastest they will be able to go... and in a parallel port unit
that would be faster then the port can transfer data anyway.
However, with all that said, I don't think it matters anyway, HiFD
sold less then 100 drives since it hit the shelves... 100, that's
one hundred, as in 100...in the biggest computer store there is...
100 drives sold...
here's what 100 is (I learned this from sesame street..)
the short way: 2x50
or... 10+10+10+10+10+10+10+10+10+10
or you can count it out...
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,
27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,345,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44.45.46.47.48.49.
50.51.52.53.54.55.56.57.58.59.60.61.62.63.64.65.66.67.68.69.70,71,72,
73,74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,82,83,84,85,86,87,88,89,90,91,92,93,94,95,
96,97,98,99... and the one NovW bought, which come to think of it
statistically means he bought the only drive his local CompUSA
sold....
If the 100 were dollars you could buy 11 shares on IOM, or you could
buy about 40 big Macs, or you could buy a small b/w TV, or a new
pair of NIKE shoes and 2-3 pairs of socks... there are about 100
grapes in a bunch, and 100 is the number of people allowed in a 7-11
at one time (actually 99)... 100 cups of coffee would give you the
runs unless you had a steel stomach... the average rite-aid parking
lot can hold 100 cars.
If zip had sold 100 drives in it's first 60 days I'd have sold right
then and never looked back, the LS-120 or more likely the EZ-135
would own the market today, zip would be gone, kaput, dead, there
would be no Iomaniacs, lunch and hype would be the only ones here,
and they'd be right! There would be no select few... wow, that's
scary...
My bet is Sony will NOT reintroduce the HiFD....and if they do, I bet
they suffer for it...
Since I can't be more zipped then I am and no one is HiFD'd at all,
I'll sign off with....
Rocker alone will raise this stock 5 points :) Hype are you the
unlucky one who will have to tell him he's toast? I hope his bulbous
red nose doesn't explode, cause if it did it would make a mess...
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I can't believe it. The media made it like Sony would destroy Iomega a
long time ago. Barons made it a feature story.
Many of us knew the Sony drive didn't work. We knew it couldn't read
floppies. And if you need floppy to install it, then what is the
point!
Now they recall it. And they have sold under 100. Less than 1 per
store. If NovW hadn't bought one, it would be less. :-)
I also heard this weekend that they still don't have it right.
Let's see if the media touts this. Someone should send this to every
tech writer, and every analyst and wake them up. It has worked that
way before.
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<< Sony reported Monday that its long-awaited HiFD products will start
shipping in late November.......
...... The Sony drive was first expected to ship by spring 1998, but
the company kept delaying the launch date because of unexplained
reasons.
"We were anxious to deliver this to market, but we wanted to make
certain it was perfect," said Teruaki Aoki, president of Sony
Electronics (company profile). ... >>
What was so important in November? Comdex. Sony literally threw
standard testing procedures out the window in order to claim they
were shipping HiFD. They were stung by a defect and forced to
recall... a recall not acknowledged at their web site. The Comdex
announcement of Zip 250 took them by surprise, and is now in
distribution channels.
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Dave
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