In a bid to expand its market to include back-end users as well as front-end users, Iomega expect to have a 160-320 GB storage server on the market by the fourth quarter. They see their main competitor, Dell, as appealing to large corporations with in-house IT. Iomega aim to target small business owners, who rely on value added resellers (VAR) to set-up and maintain their IT infrastructure.
-This will be a logical extension into an area they (VAR) haven't dealt with before. They know Iomega, they sell our products already, so as these lower end guys get into selling NAS, we're a logical partner to join with," said Peter Dawson, country director for Australia/New Zealand.
-The back-end aspect of our business is small, and will probably remain small this year, but we're expecting it to grow in the next few years," said Werner Heid, president of Iomega. -We plan to take features available today, but halve the cost."
Iomega see a secondary market for this technology as home networks. They hope to bring out an affordable 80GB server suitable for a home network. This will involve being a plug-and-use machine, with no configuration needing to be done.
