High-flying Iomega Corp could be knocked down a peg or two with the news that Nomai SA, of Avranches, France, has been freed from the court injunction which was preventing it from selling media compatible with Iomega’s Zip drive. Iomega won the injunction back in May (CI No 3,155). Nomai immediately announced a 100Mb Super Floppy diskette it claimed is the same quality as Iomega’s own diskettes, but at a reduced cost. They ship immediately in France, and some time in the fourth quarter elsewhere. To prove its seriousness, the company also announced the completion of the acquisition of RPS Rhone Poulenc Systems Media, a 60,000 square foot manufacturing plant in Albi, France. The RPS plant is a 3.5 inch floppy high-capacity manufacturing facility which Nomai says it will be converting to manufacture removable media of much higher storage capacity than standard floppies. Nomai even has a new OEM distribution agreement for the disks, from Emtec Magnetics Gmbh, the former BASF subsidiary acquired by the Korean Kohap Group earlier this year, to add to existing agreements it has with Maxell, Memorex, Letraset, Fujifilm, BASF, Verbatim and Lexmark. All this has Iomega seriously worried. The company admitted in its 10k filings that an adverse outcome in these proceedings could have an adverse effect on the company’s future sales and operating results. It intends to appeal. Nomai won the lifting of the injunction by implementing changes to its XHD cartridges requested by the Paris court in June. The company says the new announcements complete its redirection away from the Syquest and Apple Macintosh after market into the mainstream PC business. Last year Nomai so distressed struggling Syquest Inc that it almost acquired the company in an effort to end the irritation – though the sale was abrubtly called off a few days after the announcement (CI No 3,051).
