At 23:17 -0500 01/19/2003, Carlos wrote: >I must point out, if it hasn't been already, that Apple must have thought >zip drives were a good idea since they were included in so many PowerMac >systems. I'm sure that also accounts for the widespread use of a >less-than-ideal removable storage medium.
Iomega achieved huge market penetration with ZIP, despite the fact that better, more reliable and in the long run cheaper Magneto Optical drives were available, because they made the cost of entry so low. In other words, the ZIP drive is/was cheap. A good MO drive cost two or three times what a ZIP drive did. You'd make it up in media costs pretty quick, and if you lost a disk who knows what your data loss and headache costs would add up to. But by making the cost to buy cheap, Iomega got everyone to start using them. Once they became common, that fed on itself, as you pointed out. If ZIP is what folks are using to exchange data, then a ZIP drive one must have. It's the most commen thing in the world. Consumers look at the cost to buy, but don't consider the cost to own. To be fair, it's often a lot easier to come up with a little money now, and then a larger total in dribs and drabs over a period of time, than it is to pay a higher initial cost up front even if the latter scheme saves money in the long run. >I personally never trust them although I use them all the time. I just >treat them as "temporary" storage. That is, here today, gone tomorrow. But >when my LAN is down, it's a great way to get files back & forth between my >poor isolated machines. Yep. They're good for sneaker-net because so many folks have them. Heck, one snuck into my house in the Beige G3 mini-tower I bought. I don't have a ZIP disk, but I have a ZIP drive sitting in that computer. Jeff Walther P.S. If one had a time machine, Iomega would be good investment bait. Before the release of the ZIP their stock was down around $.60. A while after the ZIP became popular their stock was up to $30 or so. This was within a fairly short time frame. -- SuperMacs is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | Service & Replacement Parts [EMAIL PROTECTED] | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> SuperMacs list info: <http://lowendmac.com/supermacs/list.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/supermacs%40mail.maclaunch.com/> --------------------------------------------------------------- >The Think Different Store http://www.ThinkDifferentStore.com ---------------------------------------------------------------
