|
|
|
|
Tuesday, November 18, 1997 Monday, Iomega closed at $30 15/16, up $2 1/4 (+7.84%). TODAY'S RECAP: Not suprisingly, Iomega message board posters continued to discuss the potential of IOM's new clik! drive -- the focus centered on digital photography, but some posters expanded the discussion to include other portable devices. Other posters offered information on the role of Iomega in South America, earnings for the company now and in the future, clik!'s "competition" (the flash memory card), and the Jaz drive winning an award at COMDEX on Monday. News items not in this report include the announcement of a Sharp laptop computer with a standard Zip drive as well as NEC and Acer lines to have Zipped SKUs. Enjoy! INDEX: Use the Search or Find feature of your word processor to locate the article number (Find: 1++, 3++, etc.) - or use AOL's Edit>>Find in Top Window Feature. If Find in Top Window is dimmed, just click on some text, anything, in the IOM Today window and try again.
1++ Huibs pht discusses digital photography and consumers.
Recap written by TMF Weekly; posts
compiled by TMF Weekly. As always, the following posts represent the thoughts of our contributors, not those of The Motley Fool.
And now, the Best of the Board...Started 9:01pm ET 11/16/97. 1+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Subject: Re: Clik! - Some questions << mechanical drives in general are still subject to greater battery drain than their solid-state counterparts, a potential handicap in portable applications, according to Bruce Bonner, an analyst at Dataquest Inc., San Jose. "[Dataquest] believes mechanical storage is going to be a no-go as far as low-cost mainstream digital photography is concerned," Bonner said. >> ..hmm.. ..well, I'd have to disagree with the last sentence...I think.. ..see, "mainstream digital photography"..isn't qualified.. ..that is, we don't know if the author thinks "mainstream digital photography" will be folks shooting tiny Jpeg files to e-mail gramma...if that's true, then clik! will be OVERKILL!!.. ..now, if maistream photography, (digital) envolves printing, say 8*10 photos to send to gramma, the clik! will be appropriate, (or 40MB of flash).. ..this little indian has never thought clik! would be a 'standard', merely a low cost competitor, in a GIGANTIC potential market.. ..I've been the WORST single critic of Sony's new 'Mavica' camera (old name, new camera).. ..but the thing is SELLING LIKE MAD.. ..why??.. ..it's the DISC..imo.. ..I really think the consumer understands 'discs', especially with computers.. ..little finger fumbling flash cards are not as user familliar with the general computing community as discs are, IMO.. ..I think SOME of clik!'s success will come because it's a DISC, and DISC's make a certain 'sense', or 'connection', with the average computer consumer.. ..so I welcome the challenge to compete in the flash market..IT IS, AND WILL BE GIGANTIC!!.. 2+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Subject: So. American channel check Found on our website IOM board: << I live in Argentina and travel extensively throughout South America. I can report that Iomega is alive and doing extremely well in this part of the world too. From Bogota to Quito to Buenos Aires IOMEGA products are well stocked, highly visible and according to all of the sales people I speak to selling "muy rapido"... JDSMAN (mailto:jdsman <jsummers@supernet.com.ar>) For anyone wishing to read the whole post, it's message #1059, dated 11/15/97 in the IOM folder at www.fool.com (Subj "Am I Crazy?") 3+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Subject: Re: Mavica - a huge hit!! Scene: Tourists standing in front of a famous attraction Man taking pictures of family all smiling and waving, passerby offers to take a shot of him and his family all together. passerby skates with family camera Man, hey! you *#&^%$ COME BACK HERE!!!! Wife, OH DEAR! Well at least we still have all the other pictures we took safe and sound on these other clik! disks, I have them tucked away in my bag. It looks like we only lost this mornings pictures to that lousy nogoodnick, maybe we can retake some of them if we get another camera right away. And thank goodness we decided to use a seperate disk for each days pictures so it would be easy to sort them once we get back home. (and on... and on..:) Man, (interrupting patiently) Oh yeah! Well I guess we should stop at that RJR store over there and pick out a new camera, and gee, you know with the way prices have come down and picture quality up since these new clik! cameras came along, lets get the higher resolution model and a few more disks too! (and on.... and on....) Son and daughter jumping in in unison: Yeah Dad COOL! Lets GO see if that new super hi-rez model is out yet, I saw an ad for it on TV at the hotel just yesterday! Come on, lets hurry! In the ad they said it also takes short video clips too, and all on clik! disks, we could take little movies of cool things we see on the rest of the trip, like that man and lady we saw yesterday dancing in the rain.....that was so funny..... gee I wonder if we can find them two again! Vacation saved, vacation memories improved. clik! made it possible because clik! made it affordable! :) 4+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Subject: Price and Trust << When and if flash can be as easily removed and replaced (like film) without losing data for the same price as a Click! you might have a crossover. >> From Ben: << It can. Now. No "when." No "if." >> Since Huibs already touched upon the FEEL of a floppy compared to flash (which I 100% agree with) I wanted to point out price, and a consumer's view of disposability. First, it seems that 40megs is a target size to maintain a film-like feel. (24 high quality pics) Now, if you envision a "digital developing service" scenario, you can also see that many people would be reluctant to drop off a $300+ flash card to be serviced. Sure they could download the whole card, but that takes away from the "drop and shop" approach (you know... drop off your film at Walmart... get lost in the munchie section... by the time you've decided what to buy, the film is ready.) At $10 a pop, Clik! disks do not "feel" disposable yet, but it should approach that point much quicker than Flash.... maybe at $7? I also maintain that as Zip disks become less expensive, the "disposable" feel of them will encourage more consumers to use them, even if a higher capacity competitor does manage to make it to market. To compare it to the SparQ (not from SUNW) I'd much rather "loan out" a $10 Zip disk to a friend or co-worker, than a $40 disk... Heck, just imagine the day when AOL ships "Free 50 hours" disks on Zip.... I'll never have to buy a disk again! 5+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Subject: Re: Clik! - Some questions First of all, I'm not convinced clik! will do well. I think it can, I can make a case for it, but I'm definitely not convinced and won't be until clik! stuff hits the stores. Second, it should have been clear I was comparing apples to apples and not to oranges. A clik! and flash memory on like products, for sale side by side, becomes a zero-sum game. Because once I've chosen one, I will not choose the other. You seem to have missed the point that the games I was talking about are within the same league, so to speak. Camera XYZ has a clik! and camera ZYX has flash: I make my choice, one wins, one loses. Plus one for company XYZ, minus-1 for company ZYX. I doubt that you're going to agree with that, but that's my take. Third, I tried to make it clear that, overall, we are not talking about a zero-sum market (the camera league being one of many leagues). It's obvious there will be uses for flash and clik! (or something clik-like that's better than clik! that might come along) in different devices with different configurations, as you point out -- and, as I pointed out, I agreed totally with the rest of what you had to say. As for Intel's plant, which I never commented on directly: it's crazy to think Intel is going to dump a plant because of an Iomega press conference, which is all clik! is at this point. Flash memory seems to be an extremely handy form, but it remains godawful expensive and consigned to the upper strata of consumers for now. But it's destined to come down and its price will be a factor in clik's success or failure. I think Intel is smart to be jumping into that market, regardless of clik! As for what clik! will fit in a hundred years, I wouldn't be so quick to judge what it will fit in two years, let alone 100 :) Who knows, with a couple of Intel chips we could be talking about clik! on a chip in the future. ..........Or not. 6+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Subject: First award from Comdex Drum roll, please :-) << Home Office Computing and Small Business Computing magazines are proud to announce their Sixth Annual Editors' Picks Awards at the COMDEX Show in Las Vegas in mid-November. At the end of each year, the magazines select the best, brightest and smartest buys for small business. >> In the category of "Best Storage Device".... the winner is, IOMEGA JAZ DRIVE 7+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Subject: Re: 5 BILLION BY 2001 << Iomega expects to reach the $5 billion level somewhere in the year 2001, Edwards says. >> Iomega management sometimes is conservative to a fault. ;-) The original shortage of Zip drives, and probably a few since, were because management underestimated demand. This time last year KE stated that he felt Iomega would be doing $3 billion in revenue by 2000. Looks like he underestimated things again, as now he's projecting $5 billion in 2001. I wish all my stocks had such problems. ;-) KE's statement last year projected annualized sales growth of 35%. Combined with FY97 estimates of $0.82, at the time, yielded a YPEG fair value of $29. On the anniversary of that statement (couple of days ago) that is right where IOM was (if only it were that easy LOL). Using that same growth rate and projecting ahead into 1998 (analyst's estimate $1.22 in EPS), I've been using a $40 YPEG fair value lately. KE is now projecting roughly 50% annualized revenue growth through "sometime in 2001." Using the average of FY98 analyst's estimates of $1.22, you can calculate a YPEG fair value of $62. Or should I say $31 ;-) (i.e. post split) An interesting wrinkle is that the $1.22 FY98 estimate is only looking for 35-37% growth in EPS in FY98. Iomega has grown earnings faster than sales for quite some time now. Either this trend will change drastically (sales growth will exceed earnings growth), or FY98 estimates are too low. Time will tell. _______________________________ End Report. Posts covered through 9:00pm ET 11/17/97. _______________________________
WE
DELIVER - Get IOM
In Fooldom Today delivered
|
||||||||||
|
|||||||||||
