Media please
contact:
Chris Romoser, Iomega Corporation,
(858) 314-7148 romoser@iomega.com
Analyst/Investors, please
contact:
Barry Zwarenstein, Iomega Corporation,
(858) 314-7190
For Immediate Release
Iomega Revolutionizes Backup With Hard-Drive Performance in a Removable Disk
SAN DIEGO,
April 12, 2004 -
Iomega Corporation (NYSE: IOM), a global leader in data storage, today began
shipping the exciting new Iomega® REV™ 35GB/90GB* drive, bringing proven
hard drive reliability and performance to the world of removable storage. As
an alternative to tape and other backup and archiving solutions, Iomega’s
new REV drive and 35GB removable REV disks deliver state-of-the-art server and
desktop backup, while also providing businesses and home users with the ideal
portable storage device for sharing and archiving large files.
“The new Iomega REV drive is a unique and versatile
product that changes the rules of data backup, combining
superior reliability and performance with breakthrough
pricing,” said Werner Heid, president and CEO
of Iomega Corporation. “Backing up to tape has
always involved compromises because tape is a relatively
fragile, slow and expensive linear-access technology.
Iomega’s new REV drive makes backup and system
or file recovery tasks faster, easier and less costly.
Small business owners and IT managers will save immediately
in terms of labor, hardware costs and system downtime.”
Revolutionary Performance The Iomega REV drive offers the removeability of tape
with the speed and ease of use of a hard drive. REV
disks transfer data up to eight times faster than tape**,
are smaller than a deck of playing cards (10 x 77 x
75 mm), and can be rewritten more than a million times
(estimated). With a maximum sustained transfer rate
of 25 MB/sec, and using drag and drop random access
technology, REV users can copy and restore individual
files in seconds.
Revolutionary Reliability
With patent-pending advanced two-stage error correction
and patent-pending automatic head cleaning, Iomega
REV technology achieves an error rate three orders
of magnitude better than that of today’s sealed
hard drives. The REV drive design keeps the sensitive
read/write heads and electronics sealed in the REV
drive, and for increased reliability, a patent-pending
air filtration system creates a virtual “clean
room” environment inside the removable disk.
Iomega REV disks are engineered to provide an extremely
durable and reliable shelf life, estimated to exceed
30 years.
The Tape Replacement Opportunity
Easy to use and less than half the price of most competing
tape products, Iomega’s REV drive outperforms
more expensive tape alternatives like DDS-4, DAT-72,
VXA®, AIT-1, and DLT VS80. Gartner estimates
this market to be around 1 million units in 2004
(Gartner, 2003 Tape Drives Forecast Report, June
3, 2003).
The new REV drive also appeals to a broader market
of individuals and businesses that have avoided tape
backup products because they are slow, expensive, and
difficult to use. The market for REV backup in small
and medium-sized businesses is sizeable, with 7.9 million
small businesses (under 100 employees) and 93,000 mid-size
firms (100 to 999 employees) in the U.S. (IDC estimate).
Medical, legal, financial and other such businesses
faced with regulatory compliance requirements for data
archiving, and the millions of home office households
confronting a growing deluge of data, further extend
the market for internal and external REV drives as
an ideal backup, archiving, and portable storage solution.
“Iomega’s REV drive is a compelling alternative
for customers who have traditionally used tape for
backup and data protection on their entry level servers
as well as high-end desktops,” said Robert Amatruda,
research manager at IDC. “REV’s performance,
easy-of-use and attractive price make it a good fit
for small businesses that value high-capacity removable
storage.”
The OEM Opportunity
Major PC OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) are currently evaluating REV
drives for use in server and business desktop systems, products that often
ship without high-capacity backup due to the high cost of tape. Currently,
both the external USB 2.0 version and the internal ATAPI version of the Iomega
REV drive are available at the Web sites of major PC OEMs and other channel
partners, as well as at www.iomega.com.
German manufacturer BDT GmbH & Co. K.G., a world
leader in tape autoloader products, has already announced
(November 2003) a letter of intent whereby BDT is exploring
the possibility of developing autoloader products using
Iomega REV technology. BDT currently supplies about
70 percent of the low-end autoloader market through
its OEM relationships with leading computer companies,
including Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Quantum and ADIC. Iomega
and BDT envision a range of breakthrough autoloader
products using REV technology, from full height 5.25-inch
single drive products with 280GB of native storage
capacity to multi-drive 4U configurations with over
4TB of native storage.
The Vertical Market Opportunity The REV drive has the speed, capacity and reliability
to transform large file tasks in any business. Vertical
market computer users who will be delighted with these
features and the virtually unlimited storage expandability
of the REV drive include:
- Video producers that archive professional video and graphics projects;
- Engineers and consolutants that manage CAD/CAM and GIS data;
- Graphic designers/software developers;
- Companies and stores that manage surveillance video;
- Government offices that want to lock away sensitive data on removable
media with password protection;
- Healthcare professionals that need to archive patient records and transfer
large medical images; and
- Students that need to maintain their own disk space in shared computing
environments.
Revolutionary Software
Included with every Iomega REV drive is Iomega Automatic
Backup Pro software, which provides frequent file-level
backup to a REV drive. Once configured, the “no-touch” software
automatically backs up specified files (including multiple
revisions); keeps multiple backup sets on different
destination drives; excludes user-selected files by
file type, and performs scheduled backups. Powerful
professional-level features include 2.6:1 compression
and AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) file encryption,
along with support for Windows® server operating
systems.
Symantec’s Norton Ghost™ for REV™ Drive
software is also included for full-system disaster
recovery, letting users capture an exact image of the
computer’s main hard drive partition, including
all data files, system files, settings and installed
software. If disaster strikes, the disk image can be
easily copied back to the replacement drive from the
REV disk.
Iomega is also working with leading storage software
vendors to certify compatibility between their solutions
and the new Iomega REV drive. Compatibility will enable
joint customers to have a wide variety of software
solutions for essential storage requirements, such
as data backup and business continuity.
The initial REV products herald a new generation of
exciting backup technologies from Iomega. Later in
2004 Iomega expects to release Boot and Run™ software,
which provides home and business users with prompt
disaster recovery. If a primary hard drive fails, users
can simply “Boot and Run” directly from
an Iomega REV drive, giving them access to all the
files, applications and functionality of their primary
internal hard drive, until the failed drive can be
replaced.
Compatibility and Requirements
Supported operating systems include Microsoft® Windows® XP Home and Professional;
Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition; and Windows 2000 Server/Professional/Advanced
Server (SP3 and SP4). Minimum hardware requirements include a 333 MHz Pentium
II with a compatible USB 1.1 or USB 2.0 connection. (USB 2.0 is required to achieve
maximum speeds.)
Pricing and
Availability
The Iomega REV drive is now shipping in USB 2.0 external
($399.99 with one disk included) and ATAPI internal
($379.99 with one disk included) configurations. REV
disks are available individually ($59.99) or in a four-pack
($199.95); all prices are U.S. suggested retail. Iomega
REV autoloaders, which will support multiple disks
per drive unit, are currently planned for introduction
in the second half of 2004. FireWire®, SCSI and
SATA models are also planned for introduction in the
second half of this year.
About Iomega
Iomega Corporation provides
easy-to-use, high value storage solutions to help
people
protect, secure, capture and share their valuable digital
information. Iomega's award-winning storage products
include the new Iomega
REV™ 35GB Drive, popular Zip®
100MB, 250MB and 750MB Drives; high-performance
Iomega
HDD External Hard Drives in desktop
and portable configurations; Iomega
Mini USB Drives and Micro Mini™ USB Drives; Iomega
external CD-RW Drives; Iomega Super DVD Drives and
the QuikTouch™ Video
Burner; and the
Iomega
Floppy USB-Powered Drive. Iomega simplifies data
protection and sharing at home and in the workplace
with Iomega
Automatic Backup software, Iomega
Sync software, HotBurn®
CD-recording software, and Active
Disk technology. For networks, Iomega
NAS servers offer capacities of 160GB to 2TB.
For unlimited capacity and anytime, anywhere access,
Iomega offers iStorage™ secure online storage.
Iomega also offers businesses and consumers a comprehensive
data
recovery services solution for recovering lost
data due to hardware failure, file corruption or
media damage.
The Company can be reached at 1-888-4-IOMEGA (888-446-6342),
or on the Web at www.iomega.com.
*Compressed capacity assuming 2.6:1 data compression
with “high” compression on Iomega Automatic
Backup Pro software. Capacity may vary and is data
and software dependent. 1 GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes
**Compared to DDS-4
LEGAL NOTICE: The
statements contained in this release regarding development,
production and distribution of the Iomega REV product
or software, autoloaders, Boot and Run software, anticipated
product pricing and availability dates, expected product
performance features and specifications, expected market
size, tape drive market size, OEM opportunities, vertical
market opportunities, compatibility with third party
software, future reliability, future applications for
the new product and all other statements about plans
or estimated future performance, or those that are
not purely historical, are forward-looking
statements within the meaning of the Private Securities
Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All such forward-looking
statements are based upon information available to
Iomega as of the date hereof, and Iomega disclaims
any intention or obligation to update any such forward-looking
statements. Actual results could differ materially
from current expectations. Factors that could cause
or contribute to such differences include, but are
not limited to, the successful completion of REV product
development and testing, market acceptance of, and
demand for, the REV product, any failure to achieve
OEM adoption or enter vertical markets, any difficulties
encountered in ramping up production or other manufacturing
issues, including component availability and pricing,
co-development, production, and distribution issues,
product pricing and conformity to specifications, dependence
upon third party suppliers, hardware, software or technical
issues or compatibility issues discovered after REV's
launch, competition, intellectual property rights and
other risks and uncertainties identified in the reports
filed from time to time by Iomega with the U.S. Securities
and Exchange Commission, including Iomega's Annual
Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December
31, 2003, and its most recent Quarterly Report on Form
10-Q.
###
Copyright© 2004 Iomega Corporation. All rights
reserved. Iomega, Zip, REV, Boot and Run, Active Disk, iStorage, HotBurn
and QuikTouch are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Iomega
Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Certain other
product names, brand names and company names may be trademarks or designations
of their respective owners.
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