Yikes... SyQuest, long the top dog in the game of removable storage technology, has "suspended operations" and may file for bankruptcy. In recent years, the company's taken a real beating in the market due to the popularity of Iomega's Zip and Jaz drives. Take a look at CNET's article to read more about SyQuest's most recent financial woes. Why do we bring this up? Two reasons. First of all, we're pretty certain that SyQuest had not yet gotten around to releasing its translucent red SparQ drive for the iMac, and now that they've ceased operations, iMac owners may never get to buy the funky-looking removable drives. But we also think it's possible to draw some interesting conclusions from this latest turn in the battle of removable storage.

Several years ago, when AtAT was but a glimmer on the horizon, I needed to buy some kind of removable storage device to back up the data on our LC 575. Since the 575 had a whopping 160 MB hard drive, I neeed something that would let me do the job without swapping floppies all day long. (See, even back then floppies were showing their obsolescence...) While pacing the show floor of Macworld Expo, SyQuest had a huge, flashy booth and a swarm of smiling boothbots demonstrating the benefits of SyQuest technology-- the biggest of which, they told me, was that "everyone else is using these," like service bureaus and places like that. Iomega, on the other hand, had a really small booth and a couple of reps willing to talk to whomever had questions. The really cool thing at Iomega's booth, though, was the Bernoulli drive they had hooked into a paint-shaker sort of device. As the drive was shaken back and forth, it continued to play a QuickTime movie flawlessly, effectively demonstrating the ruggedness of the Bernoulli technology. I passed on the industry-standard SyQuest drives and went home with a 150 MB Bernoulli unit instead.

These days, Iomega's on top and SyQuest is on the verge of filing for bankruptcy. We like to think of this as an illustration of the triumph of better technology over "industry standards" and the status quo. That's an oversimplification of the complex matters at hand, of course, and the truth is, SyQuest makes (or rather, made) some pretty cool stuff. But it's still tempting to draw parallels between this latest turn of events and the possibility of upheaval in the world of desktop operating systems. That karma wheel keeps turning, so who knows what's around the next corner?