Iomega, founded in 1980 in Utah, rose from obscurity to a nearly $7 billion valuation on the back of the Zip drive — a 100 MB removable storage solution that became ubiquitous in homes, offices, and universities in the mid-1990s. Before the Zip, Iomega built the Bernoulli Box, a novel removable storage device popular with power users. The Zip drive's success was followed by the higher-capacity Jaz drive, but neither could withstand the onslaught of cheap CD-R media, writable DVDs, and eventually USB flash drives, all of which offered more storage at far lower cost without proprietary hardware. A 'Click of Death' hardware defect also damaged the brand's reputation. By 2003, both the Zip and Jaz lines were discontinued. Iomega pivoted to generic storage products but had no competitive edge, and was acquired by EMC for just $213 million in 2008 — a fraction of its peak value. The brand was eventually absorbed into a Lenovo-EMC joint venture and faded away by 2013.
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