2005 Storage Visions Conference Announces Initial Corporate Sponsors; Significant Growth Ahead for Data Storage in the Content Value Chain.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

Storage Visions 2005

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 18, 2004

The Storage Visions conferences, the only conference focusing on digital storage and the content value chain, announces the first commitments for corporate and Media sponsors for the 2005 Storage Visions(SM) Conference. Storage Visions 2005 will be held January 4 & 5, 2005 in Las Vegas, just before the 2005 CES.

There are three new corporate sponsors for the 2005 Storage Visions. Platinum sponsors are Seagate Technology and Maxtor. GS Magicstor is a Gold Sponsor. There are additional corporate sponsorship opportunities available. Details on these opportunities can be found on the Storage Visions website: www.storagevisions.com. Westworld Publishing, publisher of Storage and Entertainment, Computer Technology Review, RLTS, STA, and FCIA are current media and organizational sponsors of the 2005 Storage Visions Conference.

"The exciting advancements in digital content creation are driving tremendous opportunities for storage in many new applications," said Mike Cordono, executive vice present of worldwide sales and marketing at Maxtor. "As a leader in providing innovative hard disk products for the digital content value chain, Maxtor is proud to support a conference that promotes the importance of storage in this growth market."

"As the hard drive continues to move from the computer room to every room in the house, to the car, and even to your pocket, the Storage Visions conference will continue to be more and more important as a place to exchange ideas and to help make real people's homes into digital homes," said Pat O'Malley, Seagate senior vice president of Consumer Electronics. "From the time Seagate launched the first PC hard drive in 1979 to its role today as a leader in Consumer Electronics storage, advances in hard drive technology regularly enable new applications, first in computing and now in myriad new entertainment applications. We look forward to celebrating the 2 billionth hard drive shipped and the continuing evolution of the hard drive's role in everyday life."

At the 2005 Storage Visions Conference, recognition will be given to all the existing disk drive and major drive component suppliers for the shipment of the 2-billionth disk drive in 2004. Data storage for the digital content value chain will be a major factor in the growth of digital storage devices. Coughlin Associates estimates that by 2006 the industry as a whole could be shipping 465 million drives a year with 18% of that number going into consumer electronics (up from 10% of total drive shipments in 2004). The average storage for a wired home in 2006 will be greater than 500 GB (gigabytes), and for homes with backup and a home entertainment network or media center, that number will be greater than 1 TB (terabytes). Storage for content creation, editing, archiving, and distribution is expected to jump from 22 PB (petabytes, 10 to the fifteenth power) in 2004 to 13 EB (exabytes, 10 to the eighteenth power) in 2008.

People wishing to receive information on the 2005 conference or companies wishing to participate as sponsors and exhibitors at the 2005 conference should fill out the appropriate forms available on the conference web site: www.storagevisions.com. Interested parties can also call Storage Visions (Tom Coughlin) at 408-978-8184.