History (1994): Iomega Stops Floptical Development

Hard blow on the Floptical, the 21MB FD which sees one of its most fervent defenders dropping the competition.

Iomega Corp. (Roy, UT) is actually closing its Boulder, Colorado laboratory, which was developing its Floptical product line. However, the company stated that it will continue to sell and support its existing Floptical products. About 20 positions will be eliminated.

In 1989, Iomega had paid $2 million to Insite Peripherals, bought this year by O.R. Computer of Singapore, to license the technology.

The US company had even developed its own media and a drive manufactured by Chinon of Japan.

Probably on account of its recent financial results, Iomega has sold its thin-film head development operation located in Fremont, CA, to Aiwa R&D, Inc., a subsidiary of Aiwa company, Ltd. Under the terms of the agreement, Iomega will have rights to purchase thin-film heads from Aiwa that meet Iomega’s design specs. These heads should be used in future tape and Bernoulli devices. This activity resulted from the acquisition of Springer Technologies. The purchase cost was not disclosed but the Nikkei Weekly said it is less than $3 million and that the US division has a staff of about 10. Relations with Aiwa had started in 1992 when both companies agreed to develop a 4mm DAT drive, a product we are still waiting for.

This article is an abstract of news published on the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter on issue 76, published on May 1994.