Iomega is a producer of consumer external, portable and networking storage hardware. Established in the 1980s, Iomega has sold more than 400 million digital storage drives and disks. Purchased by EMC in June 2008, Iomega has become the SOHO/SMB arm of the world’s largest storage company.
On April 8, 2008, EMC Corporation announced[1] its plans to acquire Iomega for a consideration of US$213M. The acquisition was completed in June 2008[2].
Products
Iomega designed and manufactured a range of products designed to compete with and ultimately replace the 3.5" Floppy Disk.
Some of these products came very close to this goal whilst also achieving status in their own right as highly collectable items.
Initial Iomega products connected to a computer via SCSI or Parallel port. Later models used USB.
Controversy
Iomega has been widely criticized for customer service issues dating back to 1998, when Wired covered the company's $100 million "advertising blitz" at a time of plummeting stocks and two class-action lawsuits brought to the company by frustrated customers.[3]Warned that increased customer demand would overload Iomega's small in-house resources, the company quadrupled the number of customer support representatives in a thirty-day push to meet demand for its popular products. Fee-based technical support (which continues still today) for questions already found in product documentation was seen as the only feasible option in controlling spiralling support costs. Customers were not charged for support incidents in which Iomega was responsible (e.g., defective products). Nonetheless, some customers took exception.
In one lawsuit customers complained that Iomega's warranty promised free technical support, but once customers called, they were told they would be charged. In a second suit the company was charged with not delivering on cash rebates promised on Zip and Jaz drives sold under promotion.[3]
Iomega's faulty zip drives became known for an anomaly known as "the click of death", where — after a time — zip drives would no longer be able to read disks and would instead produce a loud clicking sound. Many users reported damaged disks and data loss.[4]
Despite the impact on the company's stock price, and negative media coverage about the company's legal, business, and customer service issues, its sales continued to grow.[3]
See also
References
External links
