Iomega Corp has released the Universal family of Bernoulli removable disk subsystems in Europe, just a few weeks after they were launched in the US (CI No 1,481). It’s not so long ago that the Roy, Utah company – formed when a disk storage development project at IBM was closed down because IBM decided it had better use for its research and development funds – was verging on bankruptcy and looked unlikely to reach 1990 and its tenth birthday. However, turnover has jumped from $51m in 1984 to $109m in 1989, and the European arm intends to increase its contribution from 19.6% of worldwide revenue to nearer 25% this year – Fred Wenninger, president and chief executive, says he would like to see that grow to nearer 50%. He also says that the company is considering establishing a joint venture on the Pacific Rim, as well as a European site with manufacturing and research facilities by 1992. The Universal family incorporates the SCSI interface, and except for the Portable, are available in 44Mb and 20Mb versions. Iomega has also launched its erasable optical storage system for Apple Macs. It is a 5.25 590Mb or 650Mb system that uses magneto-optical ISO standard disks, and it is both erasable and rewritable. The system also has 256Kb dual-ported read-write cache, and asynchronous write techniques are used to overlap the write operation with Mac operation. It costs around UKP4,000. Other products in the Universal family include the Bernoulli Transportable, a single drive AC-powered system, and Bernoulli Portable, a battery-powered version of the Transportable. They cost UKP1,100 and UKP1,350 respectively. The Bernoulli Dual consists of side-by-side dual drives in an AC-powered package that sits under a computer monitor, and the Bernoulli Insider is a 5.25 drive kit for personal computers and PS/2s. They come in at UKP2,000 and UKP1,040. Iomega is also providing a five-year warranty service on its new products, and says that 3.5 drives are in the pipeline, although they are not an immediate priority.
