zip drive

[Keith Engwall]

I'd definitely wait until the market determines the winner.  Right now, Iomega has a *hefty* lead.  Their presence at COMDEX was *HUGE*, while there was nary a sign of a competitor.  I'd put my money on Iomega, simply because they did it simple and easy, and did it a year ago.  They've got a massive head start.

However, the biggest potential threat I've seen so far has been 3M.  They've got a drive that reads both their proprietary 120 MB cartridges *and* current floppies.  That's a better solution in my opinion, and is the sort of backwards compatability that could topple Iomega.  However, they'd also have to make it as easy to install and use as Iomega, and making it as portable as Iomega would also be nice, though not quite as critical (since it would effectively replace the internal floppy drive).  Plus, they'd have to get an awful lot of quick acceptance into the market to make up for Iomega's lead.  That's the bottom line.  Whoever has the most people using the equipment will win, regardless of quality.  Remember Betamax?

Still, it's too soon to tell... I'd say whichever one ships with the most systems this Christmas will be the winner.  But, hey, at $200 a pop, pick up a couple and if you're wrong, you've got a great portable drive that will make updating and backing up remote systems a snap.

Keith

******
Keith Engwall
Systems Librarian
Briscoe Library
UTHSCSA
engwall at uthscsa.edu
******

----------
From: 	morganj at indyunix.iupui.edu[SMTP:morganj at indyunix.iupui.edu]
Sent: 	Tuesday, June 18, 1996 10:54 AM
To: 	Multiple recipients of list
Subject: 	Re: zip drive

This is an interesting idea.  We've been selling floppy disks for a long 
time to encourage downloading; perhaps it's time to graduate to zip 
disks.  The Iomega zip drive and it's competitors have been around $200 
since last year, and the 100mb disks are around $20.  But perhaps if your 
users are doing that much downloading, you need to provide outside 
network connections so they can do it from their office.

One problem of providing the drives is compatibility.  While Iomega is 
the market leader, I have no idea if it is very dominent, and each maker 
has it's own technology (the disks range from 100 mb. on up in size, 
depending on the maker).

Jim Morgan
morganj at indyunix.iupui.edu


On Tue, 18 Jun 1996, Elisabeth Roche wrote:

> I wonder if you can take time to tell me about the problem with zip drives?
> 
> Are there problems involved here beyond the fact that someone was doing
> something they shouldn't have been to library property? (I can imagine this
> scenario and it makes me sort of chuckle at how it must have been for all
> parties involved! That was one confident computer user:)))
> 
> I hadn't thought about using them on the general access library computers
> (maybe one station?) It occurrs to me that it might be a good idea.
> 
> A zip drive was donated to a class I took last semester and we could take it
> out of the cupboard, hook it up to one of the lab computers and copy needed
> files onto personal zip disks. It was very convenient.
> 
> They cost about $500 and coming down, maybe the cost wouldn't be justified
> for the amount of use? Maybe more suitable for special libraries or research
> libraries?
> Maybe it's already being done in places?
> 
> Any comments on the suitability of providing this as an aid to patrons? 
> 
> 
> Elisabeth Roche ace at opus1.com
> serendipity RULES!
> 
> > 11:25 PM 6/17/96 -0700, Caroline Habluetzel wrote:
> 
> >enough to tinker at someones machine. We catched a patron installing a 
> >zip-drive on one of our public computers...
> >
> >---------------------------------------------------
> >   caroline habluetzel
> >   stadt- und universitaetsbibliothek bern
> >   muenstergasse 61
> >   ch-3000 bern 7   switzerland
> >   tel. +41 +31 320 32 07, fax +41 +31 320 32 99
> >   e-mail habluetzel at stub.unibe.ch
> >---------------------------------------------------
> >
> >
> 
>