Iomega Corp bumbled along for so many years either ignored or disparaged that the company must find it a bemusing experience suddenly to find itself a hot property of wide interest. The transformation in the Roy, Utah company’s fortunes has come about as a result of the conventional floppy disk finally being beaten by the grotesque size of so many otherwise quite simple files, and its Zip drive is seen as one of the mere two alternative contenders to become the next generation floppy. But the company is not one for false modesty, and along with third-quarter net profits up six-fold, more than analysts expected, on booming sales of its removable disk drives, the company announced that it was assuming the gravitas of a Big Board-listed company, leaving Nasdaq for the New York Stock Exchange. Net profit for the third quarter rose to $12.8m from $2.0m on sales more than tripled to $310.1m. Iomega also said it is considering taking much of its contract production of disk drives back from outside companies and moving it into its new plant in Penang, Malaysia. It recently took over control from Seiko Epson Co of the subcontractor producing Zip drives in the Philippines and it is negotiating the transfer back of its Jaz drive production.
