Iomega fires at rival Syquest again

Iomega struck another blow to Syquest with the announcement that a new slimmed-down internal version of its popular Zip drive will be available for laptop computers.

Iomega has been making significant gains against market giant Syquest with its 100MB removable Zip drive. Dataquest, a market research firm, says Iomega has reported that more than 2 million Zip drives have been shipped since March 1995, when the product was introduced.

To keep pace, Syquest earlier this week announced steep price cuts on its EZ135 drives in an effort to cut into sales of the 100MB Zip drive. But Iomega has countered with announcements that several major vendors will be shipping Zip drives in desktop PCs. And now, Iomega is aiming at laptop manufacturers, though no vendors have yet come forward to support the product.

Iomega, which is featuring a working prototype of the drive at the PC Expo trade show in New York this week, expects the 100MB drive to ship in the first quarter of 1997. The company did not specify pricing.