🚀 go-pugleaf

Iomega's Zip Drive has become the hottest selling item of computer
hardware to hit the market in years. I am researching information on the
relative level of demand for Zip drives generated by Mac and PC users.
Although Zip is available in both parallel and SCSI versions, the PC world
does not seem anywhere near as excited by Zip as the Mac world.  My
hypothesis is that Mac users account for a disproportionately high share
of the demand.

If this is true, why is it so? 

� Does the average Mac user accumulate far more MB of files than the
average PC user?  Because of the Mac's huge superiority in ease of use and
plug-and-play simplicity, I suspect that the average Mac user is
encouraged to try many more software applications and to use them more
frequently. The Mac's superiority in graphics applications would also
encourage a far greater proportion of Mac users to operate graphics, video
and sound applications, which generate huge file volumes.

� Before Zip, Mac users probably were not able to buy external storage
capacity as cheaply as PC users. Extra hard drive capacity seems to have
been significantly cheaper for PC users, at least partly due to the wide
range of IDE drives available for the PC.  Mac users also do not have
access to low cost tape backup systems, which are common for the PC. The
lowest cost option for Mac users was probably SyQuest cartridge drives,
which have been far too expensive for most home and SOHO users. SyQuest's
reputation for poor drive and cartridge reliability has already been
debated in these newsgroups

Can anyone post anecdotal evidence on the relative level of Mac vs PC
demand for Zip drives and disks?  Perhaps this only emerges in terms of
orders for SCSI vs parallel Zips, with the further complication of having
to estimate the Mac vs PC split within the SCSI buyers. The split between
Mac and PC formatted disks could also provide some indication, but end
users are no doubt buying whatever disks they can find in the shops and
reformating them if necessary.

Let's hear what others think on these topics.

-- 
John Groves
NetSpace Online Systems, Melbourne, Australia
jcgroves@netspace.net.au