By Tony Hallett, 3 November 1998 17:17
NEWS Removable storage device manufacturer SyQuest Technology has shut up shop and is on the verge of filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The company - like rival Iomega - has suffered in recent quarters as the demand for low-end storage products has plummeted. It lost $42.5m on sales of just $44.7 during its last completed three month period, and sales are down 40 per cent year on year. Jon Newman, research director at Spikes Cavell, commented: "Iomega has done well with its 100MB Zip drives in the consumer space, and although SyQuest 1GB Sparq drives might have done well in companies, a lot of corporate IT spend is increasingly outside the IT budget. Users are often least concerned about backing up their data." SyQuest was not available to comment on any potential refinancing or reorganisation plans. The company's www.syquest.com Web site was down for most of Tuesday. In August, the disk drive pioneer announced it was axing half its 1,900 strong worldwide workforce. Iomega's share price was almost unchanged in early trading Tuesday. Spikes Cavell's Newman added: "Iomega might feel it can now drive its products upscale a bit, but they are doing that already, so this is no great boost for them." Iomega yesterday unveiled several non-PC-related versions of its storage drives that can be used with scanners and set-top boxes.
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