EMC buys Iomega for $213M

Author: Gareth Halfacree
Published: 10th April 2008
Comments (15) Stumble
Despite producing numerous other products, Iomega is best known for its floppy-killer Zip drive.

Despite producing numerous other products, Iomega is best known for its floppy-killer Zip drive.

Storage manufacturer EMC yesterday announced that it was to buy rival Iomega for $213 million, or $3.85 per share - a fair chunk of change, and a surprising valuation of a company that has been floundering for quite a while.

Iomega is a name that readers of a certain age will recognise as being behind the near-death of the floppy disk as a storage medium. The nineties saw the company producing the Iomega Zip drive which allowed people to store the equivalent of 74 3.5” disks on a single magnetic cartridge. Available for both IBM compatibles and Mac systems, for a long time the Zip was the ubiquitous 'sneakernet' accessory.

The company followed up its original success with the Zip 250, which increased the disks capacity from 100MB to 250MB while still retaining backwards compatibility. Coupled with the larger Jaz drives for backup, Iomega was the company that could do no wrong.

But then CD-Rs became the norm – cheap, disposable, and storing three times as much data as a Zip disk whilst being readable on any PC with a CD drive; people started to abandon the Zip drives that had served them so well. Iomega attempted to recapture its customer base with a 750MB unit – but the high cost and read-only compatibility with old 100MB and 250MB units meant it was never very likely.

The final nail in Iomega's coffin was the so-called 'click of death', a design flaw in the Zip technology that would cause drives to vibrate themselves to death – taking out any data on a disk used within a faulty unit. This did nothing to bolster sales of a rapidly dating technology.

Since CD-Rs and DVD-Rs became the norm for rapid data transfer, Iomega has been a company struggling to find its place in a suddenly hostile marketplace. At first trying to join in on the writable CD game with an external drive, then switching to a hard-disk based backup system that was met with apathy from corporate users, Iomega has been struggling for quite some time. Despite this, the company clearly has expertise in the consumer backup arena, and it's likely to be a canny buy for EMC.

EMC has announced that it will retain the Iomega brand name for use in the consumer realm, which is sensible – anyone who's been in a high-street PC store in the last few years will be a lot more familiar with the reassuring blue Iomega logo than the corporate-targeted EMC. Iomega's ex-CEO, Jonathan Huberman, will also be transferring to EMC to head up the Iomega-branded consumer division.

With a fresh injection of talent and – most importantly – money, Iomega could finally make it back into the hearts and homes of PC users everywhere.

Do you remember Iomega with fondness, or are the memories of unreadable Zip disks caused by the click of death too fresh? Share your thoughts over in the forums.
Quote sbarts 10th April 2008, 15:11
I have very fond memories of my parallel port connected Zip drive. God it was slow but all that storage, how was I ever going to fill 100MB’s??? How times change. My internet connection is now quicker than my zip drive was and my mobile phone has 80 times as much storage.
Quote Darkedge 10th April 2008, 15:41
if they had actually released their Click disks which were supposed to be around the size of a 50 pence but hold 1/2 gb and be cheap, they would still be a presence but no, they never came out.
Quote Blademrk 10th April 2008, 15:43
I've got that very same Zip250 model sitting on a shelf at home. Bought it to back up and transfer my final project for Uni after a disaster (known simply as my kid brother) nearly wiped all of my final year project.
Quote TGImages 10th April 2008, 15:57
FIrst new product they can make.... a NAS - RAID1 system with a built in tape drive, DVDR or some other mechanism for creating a offline/offsite backup of the data. For home or small remote offices, having a NAS device that can also be backed up, and doesn't cost a fortune like the higher end products that do this cost.
Quote Anakha 10th April 2008, 16:01
Quote:
Originally Posted by Darkedge
if they had actually released their Click disks which were supposed to be around the size of a 50 pence but hold 1/2 gb and be cheap, they would still be a presence but no, they never came out.

The IOMega Click disk originally held 40MB, and was the size of the round glass disks used in "Minority Report" (Exactly the same size - They used Click disk cases for the holders). I know, I was working in retail at the time and got to play with IOMega's prototype Click disk MP3 player. They also had a "media to click disk" unit for digital cameras, so you could fill your memory card, then transfer the pics to a (larger) click disk, emptying the card in the process. And, of course, Wikipedia has all the info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iomega_Pocket_Zip_drive
Quote TreeDude 10th April 2008, 16:05
I did not have a PC till I hit collage 4 years ago. I used to surf on my beloved Dreamcast on a 56k connection. So when I think Iomega I cannot help but remember the planned zip drive addon for the DC. I wanted it so bad.
Quote DougEdey 10th April 2008, 16:13
They still use Zips in our uni. The need to make em bigger a few gigs
Quote legoman666 10th April 2008, 17:19
We had to use zip disks at my high school. This was when flash drives first started coming out. Once I had my first 64mb flash drive, I never touched my zip disk again.
Quote wuyanxu 10th April 2008, 17:25
ah the good ol' Zip drives. i've got a Zip drive at home somewhere. was considered HUGE!

i still use one of Zip drive's case as storage for my 2 floppy disks for flashing BIOS.
Quote sk8ter646 10th April 2008, 19:59
Quote:
Originally Posted by Anakha
The IOMega Click disk originally held 40MB, and was the size of the round glass disks used in "Minority Report" (Exactly the same size - They used Click disk cases for the holders). I know, I was working in retail at the time and got to play with IOMega's prototype Click disk MP3 player. They also had a "media to click disk" unit for digital cameras, so you could fill your memory card, then transfer the pics to a (larger) click disk, emptying the card in the process. And, of course, Wikipedia has all the info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iomega_Pocket_Zip_drive


i have an Iomega Click disk MP3 sat right next to me lol dont know when i last used it though
Quote pendragon 10th April 2008, 22:05
ah yes.. i still have 2 100MB zip drives hanging around at home.. old parallel port models .. i even bought a pack of about ten 100MB disks.. at the time i felt it would replace hard disks, as you could just continue to buy more and more disks and still rub apps off them.. oh silly me :P Also remember when I was working in college.. the company I worked for had tons and tons of Jazz drives for backups.. 1 GB models ...... Well, good luck to EMC if they can breathe life back into the brand, all the better
Quote LordPyrinc 10th April 2008, 23:59
I had a zip drive way back on my first computer when I was still in college... got it free from a buddy of mine along with 2 100MB disks... never really used it all that much though.

I can't live without my flash drives these days. Got four of them ranging from 32MB to 4GB. Handy little buggers.
Quote Xir 11th April 2008, 09:22
...the drives and disks were too expensive to really replace the diskette. And they were no match for the then upcoming CDR's, so they missed their golden entry point into the market.
Quote SlickGnome 11th April 2008, 13:34
If they can get an Affordable tape backup solution for consumer use at the current storage capacities that would kick ass, How many people have 500+ gig drives loaded with music/movies/software/etc.. that is a nightmare (read: impossible) to backup to DVD, External or secondary HDD's are ok, but what if your place goes up in a puff of greasy smoke? Redundant HDD's don't help much there, but a couple of tapes that can be stored elsewhere would be great. I'm running an old SCSI tape backup at home, but tape capacities are a little low for what I need so it takes several, and to upgrade to a new setup would cost THOUSANDS at for the type I would run (I'm a little spoiled as a Net Admin, we have a 100 tape 4 head library that kicks ass for backups at work (as long as Comvault doesn't crap out)). They need to pump out something like the Jazz drive on steroids. Firewire connections, 50-100gig capacity per tape, and some good backup software (with network support!!!).
Quote LVMike 12th April 2008, 08:21
my family had a first gen Zip drive parallel port and all. ( loved it but it got the click of death) and i had the click disk player i think it was called the hip zip. I liked it, and my dad used the compact flash to click disk drive to store digital photos back when a 32 meg cf card was an arm and a leg. i liked my zip, and click drives.... but then came the ipod and flash drives.


ah the memories
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