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Monday, March 02, 1998 Friday, Iomega closed at $9 1/8, down $1/16 (-0.68%). TODAY'S RECAP: Over the weekend, Iomega message board posters debated issues ranging from advertising to competition. Specifically, SyQuest's SparQ drive came under fire, as did IOM's own "new" product, clik! Also, reviews of Zip and its competition were discussed, as were sales, advertising and the Emerald V-call from last month. 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++ NovW discusses the potential clik! interface -- what's needed.
Recap written and posts compiled by TMF Weekly. _______________________________ And now, the Best of the Board...Started 9:00pm ET 2/26/98. 1+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Subject: Clik! Interface Clik! drive interface should be the number one most important thing on a clik! drive. Since clik! is a developing product, some of the following are only be my thoughts, wishes or speculations. They may not come true at all. While I wouldn't mind having a clik! caddy for Zip drive to read clik! disks on the side, I think the number one most important thing for a clik! drive is how fast an interface it has when connected to computers. If the clik! drive has a fast interface, at least a parallel port but preferably faster, like a SCSI, IDE, USB, .... to connect to the computer, I will be happy. I wouldn't be surprised if the clik! drive may have the ZipPlus type of auto-detect PP/SCSI feature. And there may be a small docking station for the external clik! drive that may only need to be installed once and can sit in front of your computer for easier connections later. Better yet, if the whole clik! drive together with the camera can be popped into the docking station without disconnecting from the camera first. Come to think of it, and perhaps more appropriately so, the little docking station may be the "caddy" people are asking for. If the interface is fast enough, the clik! drive will be considered as an extended part of the computer. Clik! drive would be part of the computer. And clik! disks would be and could be the final destination for photo images. No need to "transfer" the images up to the computers. They are already "there". I think a clik! camera may most likely have some minor editing features, such as erasing a bad photo image and re-using the clik! disk space. For more complicated editing, you can once in awhile hook up the clik! drive (which could be the same drive in use with the digital camera) directly to your computer through the fast enough interface. And don't forget there may be a small docking station for the external clik! drive in front of your computer already. The editing program probably would use the hard drive cache or memory cache to speed up things. The finished product would likely be saved back on the same clik! disk. For very important images, you may want to doubly save them (backup) onto a Zip disk. This set up would allow you to work on a clik! disk while you have a Zip disk in your Zip drive at the same time. May not need to swap disks. Some clik! cameras would probably have a video output. So the clik! camera can be hooked up to a TV or monitor for slide shows. You can carry a few other clik! disks with previous images togehter with the clik! camera when you visit your friends or relatives. (Side note: you may connect these clik! cameras to computers through the BUZ video input also.) The inexpensive clik! disks would then be more than just films, they are also developed slides, or even photo albums, and ready for slide shows. All these things in one. How much would that be for 40 shots using conventional 35mm photography? Film costs plus processing fees, and don't forget the cost of the photo album to store pictures and your time to take them to and get them back from processing. In this sense, clik! disks would be and could be the final destination for photo images. Same thing can't be said about Flash memory due to cost consideration. Now, let's re-examine the caddy ideas. Clik! - Zip caddy: << ... if I had a click! disk in hand, I would like to be able to pop it into my Zip drive, without having to have my click! equipped camera or a click! drive ... >> Why at the first place? Complicated editing may not happen at all for Joe or Jane Six Pack. For Jane or Joe Six Pack, leaving the images on a clik! disk is the fastest .... instant, zero second, without having to pop it into anywhere. No uploading of images to anywhere else. They are already there. For techies or photo bugs who like to do complicated and time consuming editing, it will be time consuming anyway and hooking up the clik! drive to the computer probably would not be a big deal particularly if the external clik! may have a small docking station in front of the computer. Just pop the clik! drive into the docking station. Connecting the clik! drive to the computer may then require negligibly slightly more time than putting a clik! disk inside a caddy and popping the thing inside a Zip drive. If you put the clik! disk inside a caddy and pop the thing inside a Zip drive, but you want to back up those images too, you may have to upload them to the memeory or hard disk, then remove the thing from the Zip drive, insert a Zip disk .... may have some disk swapping to do in other words. Flash - 1.44MB caddy: still maybe slow to upload through 1.44MB floppy drive interface. For cost considerations, definitely need to off load images to somewhere else like the hard drive or maybe Zip disks. Sony Mavica 1.44MB floppy disks: Can you simply pop the 1.44MB disks in a computer? SEEMS so. But can you do some serious editing right there on the 1.44MB disks? No, most likely you will end up transferring the images from the 1.44MB to somwhere like the hard disk to work on. And again it may be very slow to read from those 1.44MB disks to upload. You may also want to back up images by slowly reading from those 1.44MB disks to Zip disks. In conclusion, for Jane and Joe Six Pack, they may not have to pop a clik! disk with images captured on it into anywhere else. Not having to pop a clik! disk anywhere else is a lot faster than poping anything into anywhere else. Then you may ask, why didn't Iomega explain some of these in more detalis or more clearly during the clik! introduction? Either Iomega didn't know then because they didn't develope the ideas yet, they didn't want us to know because those were secret features of a developing product, they were too shy to talk too much about the benefits of their products, they couldn't express themselves, or I am completely wrong here. Please note that I have just touched the clik! - computer end. I haven't expressed my thoughts on the clik! - camera interface in this post. 2+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Subject: Re: Iom future? Right on Antennaria: In response to scottund@aol.com who wrote<<Iomega is a one dimensional company with increasing competition in its market. There is a new product out that has more storage capabilities, is faster, and is close in price to Iomega's zip.>> Antennaria wrote: <<We have all witnessed a new standard evolve... the inclusion of a zipdrive as a standard component in computers, yet many fail to recognize it right under our nose. <snip> Are there faster, better, or different technologies around. No doubt. But do they have the widespread entrenchment that typifies the zipdrive? >> This is well stated by Antennaria but some will still not grasp it. What follows has been said on this board in bits and pieces, but is worth repeating; The 3 1/2" floppy drive is obsolete. There have been "faster, bigger and better" products around for years, but not at low enough prices. Zip was the first product with a plan to become a common replacement at a reasonable price. 100 MB is perfect. Bigger is bad. Disks need to be cheap and durable like Zips. You can toss one all the way to Huibs on the 40 yard line. You need to be able to toss one to a friend and forget about what it cost. Nobody will use a cost per MB analysis when they give one away, they only think about the DISK cost. Try to "share" some of today's shareware on a floppy. Sure there are (2 -3 years later) faster drives with more capacity. As cheap as a zip? Iomega is playing a game with the drive costs. They haven't even tried to fight a drive price battle. The competition is going broke trying to come in with a sub $100 drive. And Iomega is making a profit, with a 2 to 3 year head start in the "widespread entrenchment that typifies Zip drives". They are using some of this profit to become a household name. Perfect. Compatibility gets kicked around a lot. The points have been made, but some still don't get it. Compatibility does not matter. Why include the cost to duplicate a product that everyone has and nobody uses? How often do you use the floppy in your notebook? PC? They are getting useless. I still have some 5 1/4" disks and a drive somewhere, because I was too paranoid when I finally removed it that I might need it sometime. What an idiot I am. I hadn't used it for two years when I finally took it out! I didn't use the 3 1/2 a whole heck of a lot more, but I needed something. It's no different now. I don't use my Zip a lot, but I need something. Now I am starting to put "stuff" on Zip disks that I will probably never use again, but will not want to throw away, "just in case". Give me a laptop booting off a Zip (and Norton Zip rescue), a desktop with a Zip and a 3 1/4" drive just to transfer old stuff onto my Zips (the only time I would use the floppy is to transfer files to the Zip, and I would not want to swap disks), and eventually I won't use a 3 1/2" drive either. I will probably leave it in my PC for a long time, because not much else will fit in the hole it would leave, and I am still paranoid that I might need one sometime. Now, how many people use a notebook that don't have access to a desktop PC someplace? Most people (including me) don't back up their whole hard drive. It would take me a zillion floppies and I can reinstall everything from CD's when I have to (I have). But, I do keep all my "stuff" backed up. I have a couple of hundred floppies, I am not even sure how many or whats on them, but I don't throw any away. I do clean up my hard drive once in a while, and add to the floppy collection. I don't want to use a backup program to restore and look at my "stuff" on a tape. I am not going to buy writable CD for my files because the drive costs more, and I don't want to organize my stuff in that large of "piles". You see, I like to sift through disks and depend on my penciled labels describing my "stuff". I doubt if people will put writable CD's in their notebooks anytime soon, and they seem too permanent to drag stuff on and off at will like you do with a floppy. There will always be challengers, but Zip use will expand exponentially, and they are going to be around a while. I am betting on it. 3+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Subject: MUST READ! Review Superfloppies Iomega gets CNET's vote. Go visit this site at CNET. Great comparisons. http://www.CNET.com/Digdispatch/dispatch10.html?dd 4+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Subject: Watching Paint Dry The March 1 issue of Windows has a reveiw for the SparQ. It basically says: SparQ Sparkles. Link: SparQ Sparkles [http://www.techweb.com/se/directlink.cgi?WIN19980301S0093] However, the following from the article seems very slow to me. <<It took just 33.5 minutes to copy 500MB from the SparQ to itself-that's a rate of 14.2MB per minute. (The SparQ IDE drive we tested briefly at press time copied at an even more impressive 44.8MB per minute.)>> Can someone please run this test on a Jaz drive? According to the iomega tech specs, Jaz can maintain a sustained average transfer rate of 5.4MB/sec. To me that implies 324MB per minute. Is it really possible that Jaz is 7x faster than an IDE version of the SparQ? 5+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Subject: Re: Watching Paint Dry I just did a quick test on a Compaq P200 system with an external SCSI Jaz drive (Adaptec 2940 PCI interface) under Win 95. I copied 710 files consisting of 69Mb of data from the windows\system directory to a nearly empty Jaz cart. This took approx. 1 min, 16 secs giving a throughput of roughly 0.91MB/sec or 54.5 MB/min or about 22% faster than the IDE Sparq. When IOM quotes a max sustained throughput they are measuring how long it takes just to write to the Jaz drive from memory, not another hard disk and with no operating system overhead. This is fairly artificial since most benchmarks copy files from a hard disk to the target in a real system. 6+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Subject: V-Call. As some may remember, iomega presented at Emerald's Groundhog Day conference. It was recorded on V-call, but for some reason, the iomega presentation wasn't available to listen to. I kept checking the V-Call web site every day for awhile, but it still wasn't there. Well guess what? It's now there. Susan Stallings gave a 32 minute presentation. Every serious iomega "junkie" should go to the site and listen. There are several things she mentioned that up until now haven't been discussed. For one, she said that now Texas Instruments and Motorola are "shoulder to shoulder" with iomega, and if my memory serves me, I think she was talking about Clik! Also she played an 8 minute video commercial to the conference on Clik! It was strange only being able to hear the audio portion of this commercial, but there was alot of rock-type music, and some "cool dudes". I am wondering, what are they going to do with an 8 minute commercial? Are they going to do one of those "infomercials"? My impression is that this Clik! concept, from a marketing perspective, is already well planned out, and ready to go. If you want to listen to it, you need a Real Audio Player installed on your computer (you should get one anyway, it's free) Go to V-call's Web site : http://www.vcall.com and register, then click on the Ground Hog Day Conference, and finally click on iomega. Here's a hyperlink to the Web Site: http://www.vcall.com/start.html 7+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Subject: GENERAL COMMENTS The J & R Computer ad in today's New York Times, their regular full-page ad on the back page of the Finance Section: 1) The SparQ is shown at $199.99. Not clear if a cart is included. 2) Zip is offered at $59.99 (refurbished), if one buys a 10-pack @ $139.99. Ad mentions that the Zip comes with one (1) cart. This appears to me to take all of the wind out of the sails of SparQ. For $199.98 I can obtain a Zip with eleven (11) carts. Even if the SparQ does include a cart, one can get 10% more storage space with the Zip at the same price. In addition, one has eleven carts to use to send files to other Zip users. Not possible with only one cart with the SparQ. 3) The "Zip Built In" logo shows up 3 times in the full page ad, twice with Apple desktops and once with a Compaq desktop. I close with a brief comment about the advertising campaign with which I agree 100%. For 5 years I worked for a man who successfully ran a family-owned business in the extremely competitive field of wholesale, escorted tours. He always maintained that he could not count on the retail Travel Agent recommending his tours over that of the competition. He felt that he had to advertise heavily and make the buyer ask for his tours when they visited a local Travel Agent. I am hoping that the ads will build brand recognition and that the buyer will ask that an Iomega product will be included in the computer being bought. 8+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Subject: Re: Clik Caddy << "Not that I don't enjoy the circles....... But I think Mark Rogo's point is that if I had a click! disk in hand, I would like to be able to pop it into my Zip drive, without having to have my click! equipped camera or a click! drive." Iomega said they had difficulty doing this, but. . . . . .if they had an adapter that would allow you to plug the Clik drive into the floppy or Zip slot, that would be second best. HeyKerry had shown an example of such a thing with another company using a wire leading into a floppy adapter. This would probably be much better consumer-wise than making Joe Sixpack turn the computer around to find the right port in the back. Another example of the same thing...a cassette tape with a wire coming out of it that leads to a Diskman...so you can play a compact disk by plugging into the cassette deck. >> Still not gonna get it done... There are plenty of ports on computers. I don't think the back vs. front think for a clik DRIVE makes a wit of difference. There needs to be a braindead way to pop a clik DISK into a computer and offload. Compact Flash already has a laptop solution for about $20 and a desktop solution that I have now seen for only $99. Clik? $200! Suddenly, this is another barrier in my mind to Clik, with its much higher initial cost. Lower media prices and much higher initial cost are not the road to success. All of you know this. All of you who owned Iomega know this. Don't now pretend otherwise. High drive prices, low media prices: 1) Magneto-optical drives -- Perenially dead products in the market 2) PD/CD -- Like the above, now gone 3) Early CD-Rs and current CD-RWs 4) Early SyQuest -- never ever went mass market even though carts were relatively a per/MB bargain >5 years ago Low drive price, overpriced media (per/MB basis): 1) Iomega Zip drive -- 10-15 cent/MB media when entire hard drives sell for 4 cents/MB. Having to buy a clik drive in the camera and a clik drive for the desktop is a loser. A Zipped desktop, which we'd all like to see become a STANDARD, could probably use a $20-40 caddy, if Iomega could build one. Zip disks are fat folks... If Olympus can put a flash card reader in a floppy form factor, Iomega should be able to do this. If it can't, it should hire Olympus. _______________________________ End Report. Posts covered through 9:00pm ET 3/1/98. _______________________________
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