|
|
|
|
Monday, December 22, 1997 Friday, Iomega closed at $25 7/16, up $1 7/16 (+5.99%). THIS WEEKEND'S RECAP: This weekend, the Iomega message board covered a wide range of topics, including the Emerald call, "cheap" Jaz drives, backwards compatibility, music, and Internet backup services. However, the issue of Iomega's patented reflector vs. Nomai's "pirate" Zip disk garnered significant and indepth coverage -- this in light of Iomega's injunction against Nomai in France having been lifted earlier this week. 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++ JIMMUNROE contributes some thoughts on the Iomega patent vs. Nomai.
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 12/18/97. 1+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Subject: Retroreflector Patent This is my reading of the retroflector patent issued to Iomega. I thank Ira Smilovitz for giving me the reference. This is one man's opinion, but one trained in optics. I hope it is useful. The patent covers several variations so it is difficult to ascertain exactly what they actually did. Central is the use of cube corner arrays or retroreflective sheets incorporating small imbedded spheres. Specifically not claimed is a spherical mirror such as Nomai uses. This I feel is a major oversight. The patent recognizes that there will be some return from any diffuse reflector (e.g.,rough surface) and from an "optimally oriented "speculalar reflector" (e.g. a mirror). The strength of the return signal discriminates between a retroreflector and some other reflective surface. This makes sense. The patent does invoke the use of baffles but only as a way to reduce noise and backscatter coming from outside the intended field of view. They also invoke the possibility of what sounds like a field lens to further reduce background. The patent spends a good deal of time describing ways to reduce and background. The patent does use the phrase "phase conjugation" but without any elaboration. The phrase is either used incorrectly or as a weak attempt to further broaden the patent. My bottom line is that the Zip system is based on the use of a retroreflector and the spherical mirror used by Nomai could well fill the bill without violating the patent. I am not a patent attorney so my opinion may not be worth much. I still feel that Iomega could very simply make the Nomai disks inoperable by using the property of cube corners that they scramble polarization whereas the sphere, used by Nomai, would preserve polarization. It may require no more than putting one plane polarizer in front of the light source and a second in front of the detector with the second passing only light polarized orthogonally to the light passing through the first. Light returning from the Nomai disk would for the most part be stopped by the second polarizer while a good fraction of the light from the Iomega disk would, having scrambled polarization, pass on through. This is also a cheap solution. The cost impact (to Iomega) might well be measured in pennies. It is the kind of solution that might not occur to an electrical engineer or a mechanical engineer. I hope Iomega reads these boards sufficiently to at least consider this solution. 2+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Subject: Emerald notes I got on the Emerald call late due to technical difficulties, but here's a stream of consciousness report on what I was hearing... all the analysts seemed very bullish on IOM, and that the recent downturn isn't due to anything material.... Analyst Rosencranz...IOM a strong buy.... less than 20x based on '98 incredibly low valuation for co achieve growth rate they have from 144m in sales in '94 to $1.8 bil this year we expect 5 million oem drives sold in '98 OEM's love zip cuz they are a huge selling tool nice margins IOM continues to bring costs down.. we predict less than $50 unit cost in 98 to oem's the key thing that makes us enthusiastic is IOM's competitive position....90% of the low end market... LS120....was huge scare in marketplace....largely dropped...not a major factor anymore.... we believe it will be the high-density standard....a 1.44 disk just doesn't work anymore... sony will be much too late to the game... word is that IOM will have 145 skus... Micron took lead on IOM, little player, 1 % share, but clearly they have had insight in the past as to where industry is going.... they're first to make Zip the a:drive going into 4th quarter, we have aggressive estimates.... we believe price drop on IOM is retailers using zip as loss leader, not much discount from iom we believe... we believe they can 3mm zips for q4....or even a couple hundred thousand more.... we sliced back jaz assumptions to be conservative...we don't believe there are quality issues... see jaz 2 delay as a non-event... IOM is not a commodity company like a seagate or western dig. for Q4 we predict 34 cents on $605mm $1.30 per share earnings pure technology announcement...not appearing to come to market any time soon.... people underestimate marketing prowess of IOM...not sexy to sell storage drives but IOM is making it fun and exciting... someone else predicted $580mm revenue, 31% gross margin, 11% operation income...31 cents for q4 $2.66 bil revenue for '98 $1.12 per share Stan's esimateed $595mm 32 cents for q4, $2.4 bil rev for '98 and $1.35 eps questions scudder stevens.....address fuji hi-density.....why have other super floppies failed?? Rosencranz...."had close look at Sony at comdex....no hard facts on avail, and pricing....price is the most important attribute....any floppy replacement has to be a very low cost item....HiFD is a drive on the leading edge....have high costs associated with it.....very long time b4 sony drive can get down to cost of iom today....sony doesn't have full benefit of margins from media to offset low drive margins that IOM has had... "I've been in storage for 20 yrs.....looking at quality of drive, I estimate it's around 9-12 mos away from being manufacturable... the clik! drive at comdex was fully functional....yet don't expect that to be avail til 2nd half next year... HiFD won't meet cost requirements....don't see it being a competitive threat daniel kunstler...."fuji is Sony partner, major supplier to IOM, using similiar technologies....very curious about is how this product will be positioned, expect to see a fair amount of caution to not make this an act of hostility toward IOM... someone else..."installed base...will be 16 mil minimum by time sony comes to market....Sony can afford to make it a loss leader....lot of high cost technology.... IOM has recognized that price is everything...marketing genius....at this juncture very tough to catch them... 3+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Subject: Quick Call Thoughts... First of all, RealAudio is getting much better. At 50.666K, I was surfing other pages and the sound stayed real good. Second of all, although I personally think Emerald is a bunch of touts, I don't feel that way about Kunstler, for example. He, if anything, undersells Iomega due to relative disinterest. He sounded pretty bullish. Third of all, I think it's interesting that people are seeing Iomega facing competitors in the future for disks, patents notwithstanding. This may or may not be true, but in the U.S., I think the patents are the strongest and that remains the No. 1 market. It also appears that booby traps, like the reflector, may mean the Nomai's of this world cannot sell disks for future Zip drives. That would limit the market threat posed by 3rd-party disks. Fourth, the bullishness was reasssuring, but this call was "damage control" from the beginning. Only later did people warm up to the good side of the story. I heard nothing about Jaz competitors and what they might mean going forward (my opinion is in a lengthy post I am preparing for the weekend), but heard no one much cared about Jaz2 in Q4, although it is expected to contribute 10+% of some folks revenues in Q1. Fifth, it is apparent to me that the limited universe of Iomega analysts is setting up for upgrades in 1998. The estimates are too low by all logical measures. It appears that Zip shipments will be close to double right now and that Jaz and Jaz2 will continue to grow nicely as well. If any of these other products do anything for revenues at all, things will be healthy. The cumulative effect of the installed base of drives is getting more powerful every day. This allows for nice EPS growth unless people stop buying disks. Sixth, if Iomega Zip drives become a quasi "loss leader" at retail, as one of the analysts suggested, then a lot of Iomega Zip drives are going to be sold at reail. A real lot. I would suspect the ubiquitous $99 Zip will be available sometime in the middle of next year and that the $79 Zip will appear next Christmas as a hot promo item. 4+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Subject: $195.99 Jaz Int Refurb Jaz for under $200: PC Mall
http://www.cc-inc.com/cfm/frames/pcmall/showcase/ In Stock $195.99 IOMEGA JAZ 1GB INTERNAL SCSI REFURBISHED DRIVE 5+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Subject: Micron a: drive There has been alot of confusion between what the press release said (early 1998) and what has been posted of what Micron sales reps have said on the telephone. I have decided to finally move up from my 486/33 and called Micron about 3 weeks ago on a Sunday night. I asked about the a: drive Zip and the guy said about 1 week. I then called during that following week and talked to a guy that sounded he was more in control of the facts on the issue. He politely told me the other guy didn't know what he was talking about. The second guy (Dave) said he would know if they were that close because he was a Trainer. Their official line is that it will be sometime over the next couple of months. I can't get him to narrow it down any further than that. I almost went ahead and ordered the XKU266 (Pentium II) without waiting for the Zip a: drive because I will be home for the week in between Christmas and New Years and really want to have it by then. I mentioned my dilemna to my wife and she suggested that if I don't wait I will really regret it after it becomes available. I think she is right. The Zip a: drive is so symbolic of my investment in Iomega I have decided to wait. I called Dave at Micron and told him of my decision and he has a sticky note on his monitor with my name and phone number when they are available. I told him when he calls me with Zip a: drive available he will IMMEDIATELY get my credit card number. P.S. I disclosed to the Micron rep that I am an investor in Iomega so let's not start that thread ; ) 6+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Subject: Backward Compatibility I believe my experience this week illustrates the importance of backwards compatibility. I purchased Turbo Tax and for the first time, it comes with CD-ROM and NO floppy. My problem is I don't have CD-ROM (until I get the Micron) ; ) . If I want the floppies I have to pay another 4 1/2 bucks and wait a couple of weeks. My solution will probably be to either try to copy the CD-ROM to Zip Disk on a friend's Micron machine so I can install it from my PP Zip or wait until I get the Micron machine. In summary, the usefullness of the floppy is dying and backwards compatibility is becoming more of a useless feature all the time. 7+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Subject: Re: Safefuard Interactive Duuwhee: << How long is it going to take to upload and download 100MB's of information? Wouldn't this be more "dog slow" than the LS-120 even with the fastest modem? >> This is the real crux of the issue when it comes to online back-up services. The article "Saved by a Safety Net: Off-Site Backup" appears in the latest "Real Solutions" section of PC World Magazine (January, 1998). While it specifically concerns the "Atrieva" back-up service, the technical problems of saving to an internet site are identical. Here are some clips with my comments: << And making a full backup of my desktop PC's 1.2GB hard drive meant shuffling at least 12 Zip cartridges--a time-consuming process. >> Here the author is knocking the Zip drive because using Zip he is tempted to make and carry a full back-up of his hard drive. However, when it comes to actually backing-up his data on the internet, here is his decision: << I didn't feel I needed to back up my applications. It took 3 hours to back up about 35MB of data using my 28.8-kbps modem. >> Yes, that's right, 3 hours to back-up 35MB of data. Seems to me that data could fit on all of 1 Zip disk after all, with room for your Star Trek game. I suppose the internet solution is superior as you are not even tempted to try to back-up your entire hard drive using Atrieva as it would take over 4 days. << As a result, I couldn't launch Windows 95 or any of my apps. After consulting with my laptop's tech support, I found I had only one option: Reformat my hard drive--erasing everything on it, including the files for my presentation--and reinstall Windows 95 and my apps. <snip> If I had not backed up my data, I'd have been sunk. >> I guess that using a boot disk to copy your files off in DOS is no longer "high tech" enough. Although most computer users confronted with this type of problem might find that a lot easier and faster than spending another 3 hours downloading their files from the internet. 8+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Subject: Why I won't buy SPARQ--EVER!!! Happy Holidays everyone, as you know I write mostly about music applications with ZIP and JAZ. I have recorded 3 albums on Higher Octave Music with sales over quarter of a million CDs and used Syquest carts for the first album, JAZZ thereafter. If most people in the audio/video industry are like me (i.e., don't want to lose their work frequently) they will chose JAZ over SPARQ anyday. If you gave me a SPARQ for free, I WOULD NOT use it for music recording. The reason, I went back a few weeks ago to use some stuff form my SYquest cart, guess what ......LOST ALL MY DATA! That is what we all remember when the word SYQUEST is mentioned. Everyone, and I mean everyone you talk to in the industry just don't trust the brand name, too many mishaps. IOMEGA is = reliability in the audio/video industry. When I am spending about $100,000 (quite a low budget for an album) to record an album, I don't want to nickel and dime it by buying something (SPARQ) that may be cheaper, but may also end up in my losing data. Also, like ZIP in mass market, the JAZ is now standard in the audio/video industry so if I want to record something in DC and take it out to LA tohave someone else play a sax or guitar or something THEY want it on a JAZ. 9+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Subject: Re: Retroreflector Patent JIMMUNROE: << The patent covers several variations so it is difficult to ascertain exactly what they actually did. Central is the use of cube corner arrays or retroreflective sheets incorporating small embedded spheres. Specifically not claimed is a spherical mirror such as Nomai uses. This I feel is a major oversight. >> I have to strongly disagree with you once again, Jim. First off, I believe it is apparent in the patent that although Iomega talks about certain possible embodiments and even illustrates several possibilities (Fig. 4 & 5), the "preferred embodiment" that was finally selected was the use of the "acrylic tag" retroreflector with a co-planar Emitter/Detector pair (E/D) shown in Figures 11 and 12. Iomega explains in the patent that a retroreflector contains many unique properties that other reflectors or combinations of lenses and reflectors cannot duplicate. Although you are correct in that Iomega does not mention spherical mirrors specifically, they do say "the critical difference is the amount reflected back upon the incident path" (Section 4/Line 44). While they list a few examples, it would be absurd to expect that Iomega could or should list every type of reflector and lens combination that will not duplicate this unique property of retroreflectors. How can this property of almost total reflection of light back on the incident path be used to thwart thieves like Nomai? I will give some simple examples. Iomega mentions that because of this property of incident reflection, spacing and angular tolerance between the E/D and RR is not critical. This means that the use of a RR marker allows Iomega a lot of freedom in the placement of the E/D pair, and the light will always be properly returned from the disk. This is not true of other types of reflectors, especially not a concave mirror. Concave mirrors are figured for a single, specific focal point and are extremely intolerant of spacing and angular differences. As long as Iomega was manufacturing external Zip drives where the E/D was never moved from its original position, then a concave mirror could indeed be figured to find a solution to that specific placement. This is apparently what Nomai has done. However, if Iomega begins to change the geometry of the placement, the concave mirror will NOT be able to correct to the new position, while all the retroreflectors on the hundred million Zip disks now extant will be able to adjust automatically for the change. This change in geometry on new drives could be done to specifically frustrate the Nomai disk, or it could be dictated by the demands of a different type of drive, such as the laptop Zip. I mention the laptop Zip drive in particular because Iomega mentions it in its arguments before the courts. I think this provides the explanation as to why a Nomai disk suffers non-compatibility in the laptop version more often than the external Zip. In the patent, Iomega states that the distance from the RR to the E/D in the external Zip drive is 13mm. Nomai has figured the focal point of its concave mirror solution to be this critical distance. However, in the laptop Zip the height of the entire drive is 12.7mm, so it follows that the new distance of the E/D to RR path must be far shorter than 13mm, maybe half. And this is what is causing Nomai so much grief.... that distance places the E/D far before the focal point of its concave mirror, and the mirror curvature is fixed and cannot adjust between the 2 types of drive solutions needed. Here is yet another simple modification that Iomega could make in the external drive to reject Nomai's "fixed solution". The light from the E/D passes through a slit cut in the base plate of the external Zip (slit 23 in Fig 3). In new external drive production runs, Iomega could simply move the E/D slit (and the E/D underneath) a small distance from its current position, maybe one-half centimeter. The RRs on all the current Iomega disks would correctly adjust for the new position, while Nomai's concave mirror would focus the light back to the baseplate where the old slit had been located, but would now be completely obstructed by the baseplate itself. No light from the Nomai disk would reach the detector in its new position. Simple, cheap and deadly to all other reflector types as Iomega moves the slit position in different drive models or production runs. Another very powerful property of retroreflectors is their ability to completely remove distortion from intervening baffles, something that no other reflector can do with the exception of a phase-conjugate mirror. In its patent, Iomega also talks about features that may be added to frustrate other types of reflectors, and mentions the use of a "textured lens cover" or more commonly known as a "baffle". This has also been complained about by Nomai in its press release, so that it appears that Iomega my indeed be making use of this property in some versions of the Zip drive. Now Jim, I fully recognize that a retroreflector is not a true phase-conjugate mirror... that it does not make use of Brillouin Scattering or Four Wave Mixing to achieve total phase-conjugate reflection exactly back along the incident path. I am using this term loosely to describe a property that is similar in retroreflectors, but not as famous as it is in phase-conjugate mirrors. Most writing on the topic of RR distortion-free reflection takes this expediency, as does Iomega in the patent. It is just a practical way of illustrating the property. I also very much appreciate your contribution of using polarized light to thwart would be disk pirates as the way mirrors and retroreflectors return the polarization is completely different and can be exploited to distinguish between them. Clay Hagan has also offered an ingenious method of checking the returned light for the proper RR, and he might like to add that to this discussion. But these are just a few of many properties that Iomega may exploit to achieve the same ends, including just changing the geometry of the E/D placement. And while I agree that a spherical mirror can be figured to find a solution to a single, exact placement of the E/D in an external Zip drive as it now exists, you must also agree that they cannot correctly adjust for all the possible placements that Iomega can change to in the future, by plan or design. In that sense, the spherical mirror solution is D.O.A. I look forward to hearing more of your thoughts, 10++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Subject: Re: Retroreflector Patent I don't see how you can strongly disagree with me because I agree with most of what you are saying. The sphere is only a retroreflector for light eminating from the center of curvature and only works well if the light source is at (or near) the center of curvature. If the distance to the light source changes, the mirror will still return light but less efficiently, i.e. the signal strength diminishes. We seem to differ only in degree which comes down to how well Iomega can differentiate a weak return from a strong return. If Iomega shifts the location of the light source in the drive (as they hint at in the patent) so it is off-axis, Nomai is left chewing dust. The prism (and the retroreflective sheets that they invoke) self compensates for range and cross-range changes and is clearly superior to the sphere. Being a first order system (operating only on the ray direction), the retroreflector cannot correct for any "distortions" by any mechanism that I am aware of. I take "distortion free" to mean simply that all the other phase terms are preserved, with the exception of the first order tilt term. I am puzzled by the "textured lens cover" invoked and took it for some kind of field lens. I am also a little confused by the "annular beams" which sounds like the retroreflectors have roof angles intentionally greater than 90 degrees. This would return the beam to outside of the light source, supposedly onto the detector. If true, the Iomega scheme would not be quite as range independent. The important thing, where we agree, is there are simple things that Iomega can do to make the Nomai disks useless. I was not crying wolf--quite to the contrary. I do worry that if Iomega is made up of EE's and ME's, the idea of using polarization may not occur to them. Many of us learned this property the hard way, using a cube corner in one arm of an interferometer and trying to figure out what on earth happened. _______________________________ End Report. Posts covered through 9:00pm ET 12/21/97. _______________________________
WE
DELIVER - Get IOM
In Fooldom Today delivered
|
||||||||||
|
|||||||||||
