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

To: David Colvin who wrote (8909)	4/11/1999 9:42:00 AM
From: David Colvin	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10072

More from the AOL Motley Fool board....looks like the Clik! drive is going to have competition in the digital camera arena. Subject: Japanese translator needed. Date: 4/10/99 8:46 AM Central Daylight Time From: HRPlbg Can anyone translate this web site? watch.impress.co.jp I think it talks about a new Sanyo digital camera that is capable of using the New IBM MicroDrive. Photos on CD everywhere, part I: In the flurry of PMA news in mid-February, we missed the announcement that Wolf Camera plans to roll-out PictureVision's digital kiosks at 500 of their 750 stores nationwide. The kiosks will allow Wolf's 1-hour labs to also scan images to CD or upload them directly to PhotoNet. This item suggests that the conflicting standards between PictureVision and Kodak's Picture CD have been resolved, as it says the kiosks will write Picture CDs. This sounds like great news for photographers wanting to dip their toe into digital, without taking the plunge of buying their own scanner. No mention was made of pricing, but past information suggests that you'll be able to get a roll of film digitized to 4.5 megabyte JPEG files for between $9.95 and $15. - This is ample resolution to make good-looking 8x10 prints. Photos on CD everywhere, part II: In related news, we've independently learned that Kodak's market tests of Picture CD were a roaring success, and they're immediately making the service available nationwide. Expect a delay of a month or two though before you see advertising for it appearing, as they need to ramp-up their production capabilities before widely advertising it. Once they do, expect many of your corner drugstores to sport a "Picture CD" option on their processing envelope. -------------------------------------------------- Hard drives race against Flash ROM: Calluna has announced a volume manufacturing partner for their 260 Megabyte Type II hard drive cards. (These cards are only 5mm thick, thin enough to fit into most PCMCIA card slots.) No pricing was mentioned, but this has to be good news for professional digicam users, as it will advance the competition between the flash-memory and hard-disk technologies for high-capacity image storage, ultimately driving prices lower. ----------------------------------------------------- - SanDisk supplies 32MB MultiMedia Cards to LG! A press release from SanDisk Corp today notes that Korean electronics giant LG Electronics has agreed to bundle SanDisk's 32MB MultiMedia cards with LG's new Portable MP3 Audio Players. Whilst not really digital imaging related, this story is interesting nonetheless, as it is not only the digital imaging market which will decide which Flash format(s) will eventually triumph. The MP3 players feature two MultiMedia card slots capable of accepting 64MB in total, which would provide up to 60 minutes of near CD-quality audio. According to LG, SanDisk were selected for their technology achievements and ability to deliver high capacity in a small form factor... -------------------------------------------------------------- The above comes from a few digital camera sites I visited this morning. I was surprised at the lack of any mention of Clik!. It makes me wonder how well Clik! is being received by the digital camera market. Subject: Re: Japanese translator needed. Date: 4/10/99 10:28 PM Central Daylight Time From: Shig2 HRPlbg wrote: Can anyone translate this web site? watch.impress.co.jp I think it talks about a new Sanyo digital camera that is capable of using the New IBM MicroDrive. Yes, it is a Sanyo digital camera that uses IBM MicroDrive. It was shown at CeBit show. They expect the product to be available around 9/99 in Europe at 1,500 mark or a little more than 100,000 yen (or a little more than $800). It's likely to be available in Japan about 1 month afterwards. Shig Subject: Re: Japanese translator needed. Date: 4/11/99 12:10 AM Central Daylight Time From: DickM71179 From DickM, HRPlbg posts an excellent summary of some new digital developments and also: The above comes from a few digital camera sites I visited this morning. I was surprised at the lack of any mention of Clik!. It makes me wonder how well Clik! is being received by the digital camera market. I believe that Clik! is running out of time, as competition like the IBM micro drive are firming-up agreements. Clik! finally made it into CompUSA locally, a lonely drive with no marketing support sat in the "parts" department in a glass case near the digital cameras. I don't think that the sales people even know how it would be used. (I would have asked, but they were busy selling or demonstrating cameras, never once mentioning Clik!, at least while I listened). One interesting sidelight at CompUSA was the brand new Kodak APS film scanner ($399, I believe) that digitizes the new film cassettes at very high resolution, I think it was 4.5 MB per picture. Hook this to a Zip or a Jaz drive, and you have a very high quality digital "album" of a conventional film, quite a twist from Kodak! Back to the marketing issue (or lack thereof) for Clik! By comparison, the same day I watched a young female clerk at Best Buy demo a Sony Mavica for a couple. She had them take a series of pictures there in the store. Then she took the floppy "film" disk over to the computer section, where one demo computer had the editing software installed. She then showed the couple what some of the things were that could be done with a digital "album" (I think that they were sold, and about to buy one of the topline Mavicas, as a result). Clik!s are hard enough for this very interested board to figure out, as far as the operating methodology is concerned. How is the average potential digital camera purchaser supposed to find out? Osmosis? Not too far from the cameras at Best Buy was a nice new display of Diamond Rio MP3 players. I'd have to say that they too suffer a bit from the functional ignorance of potential buyers, except in Japan. (I don't think that many over the age of 14 know how to use them by downloading from the Internet). Another great opportunity for both Rio and Clik! (or a Clik!'d Rio). How about a demo of downloading right in the store? (may never happen, as the downloaded music is "free", which isn't exactly good news for hot media stores like Best Buy) In any case, time is running out for Clik!, IMHO. IOM better get moving! DickM Subject: Re: Japanese translator needed. Date: 4/11/99 1:38 AM Central Daylight Time From: DW20001 re:In any case, time is running out for Clik!, IMHO. IOM better get moving! I want to think that those incorporating Clik! or for that matter any other innovative device wouldn't broadcast the event to competitors. (That is unless you were Sony and wanted to skew the market's perception of your products). IMO Clik! Still has time to make a major impact. I particularly like the miniaturization of segments of the industry and the opportunities that it affords.

To: David Colvin who wrote (8909)	4/11/1999 2:31:00 PM
From: Reseller	Respond to of 10072

re: Editorial comment: >>Rob has obviously put a lot of work into his spreadsheet and chart which is viewable via his provided link. The chart says it all! This just may be good evidence of my previous assertions that Scott Flaig's virtual enterprise model will eventually wring out the internal operating cost/inventory excesses that contributed to Iomega's losses in 1998.<<< members.aol.com This is an excellent chart. Shows outstanding inventory control, increased channel deliveries at the beginning of the Q2 suggests to me that they had held back channel inventories perhaps to more easily make channel price protection adjustments due to the price decreases. Also may indicate that Q1's numbers have been met as the inventory increases spiked at the beginning of Q2 and looks like they're front loading the quarter, says quarter over quarter control. In any case it's nice to see the huge drop in pp external drives and the increase in the Zip 250 product. I fully agree it looks like Scott Flaig is doing an outstanding job. I wonder where that internally generated money came from to payoff the Naomi loan. Been visiting the various box builders sights and as batch says Iomega everywhere. Feeling more optimistic about Q1, especially after seeing Compaq advertising Zip as an option and no mention of Superdisk along with the comment by M.Dell that sales are strong. I expected the Imation / Compaq OEM agreement would have expanded. As I recall Jody had taken over direction of International sales, it will be interesting to see the improvement if any from this effort, I kind of expect these numbers to improve as his direct attention was focused at least in part to this effort. I'm too lazy to do the analysis that you and Mike did but my gut analysis says that Jody won't disappoint and that we come in at a break even to +.01. Regards Reseller