Tuesday, EMC Corporation, maker of Retrospect backup software and developer of many corporate-level backup, archiving, virtualization, and management products and services, announced an agreement to purchase Iomega Corporation. Iomega will become the core of EMC's new Consumer/Small Business Products Division, cementing a partnership that goes back to 2004 when Iomega began providing EMC's Retrospect software with its external disk drives. It's been a long road from Iomega's beginnings to this point. Here's how they survived the ride.
Iomega, like many other technology startups, was the beneficiary of an idea that IBM discarded.
A quartet of IBM engineers developed a method for preventing disk crashes by using a cushion of air between the read-write heads and the media. They took the method that IBM discarded and started Iomega in 1979. The method, known as the Bernoulli effect, was the basis for Iomega's first storage product, the Alpha-10 (10MB) Bernoulli drive. Introduced in 1983, it was commonly known as the Bernoulli box for its pizza-box form factor.
The Alpha-10 used 8-inch flexible media inside of a rigid case. Later models in the the Alpha series increased capacity to 20MB, rivaling the capacity of early IBM PC-compatible hard disk drives, and providing the advantage of "infinite storage" - just buy another cartridge to grow your capacity.
The Beta series, which put the cartridge on a form factor diet to 5.25-inches and increased the capacity from the original 20MB to an eventual capacity of 230MB, was the first Iomega product available in an internal form factor.
Leading Edge, the one-time wunderkind of the IBM PC compatible business, sold its Leading Edge Model D in a special configuration known as the "Infinite Memory System," replacing the normal 20MB or 30MB half-height hard disk with a Beta 20MB drive with two cartridges. Extra 20MB cartridges sold for $49.95 each, a real bargain compared to the $250 or so price on a Seagate ST-225 20MB hard disk or similar products sold for at the time. For more about Iomega's greatest hits (and misses), read on.
Comments are closed on this article
for the lolz
April 13, 2008 at 1:07am
My GF showed me this amazing deal. It was a 1 terabyte hdd for a 100 dollars less than the competition... And now i know why lol. because Iomega was being bought up.. I'm assuming they wouldn't have to honor any warranties if they were bought up.... right?
---
I do it for the LolZ. =)
Marcus_Soperus
April 15, 2008 at 6:51pm
Iomega isn't vanishing or going out of business, and it would be an act of collosal stupidity for EMC to blow off existing Iomega customers right when it's trying to build a new division around the company. Deals like this often come around because new products are coming down the pike, so don't worry about the warranty.
--------------------------------------------------
It's amazing how illogical a business built on binary logic can be.
Evil Don
April 11, 2008 at 4:37am
"Imation's LS-120 (120GB) and LS-240 (240GB) SuperDisk"
It should read: "Imation's LS-120 (120MB) and LS-240 (240MB) SuperDisk".
Megabytes not Gigabytes.
Marcus_Soperus
April 11, 2008 at 7:04am
It's hard to remember back when MB capacities ruled the roost!
------------------------------------------------
It's amazing how illogical a business built on binary logic can be.
Talcum X
April 10, 2008 at 11:29am
Great write-up. I wondered what Iomega was up to these days. Haven't heard much of them these past few years.
**********
Every morning is the dawn of a new error.
Print
