3M and Tandberg Data Work to Advance Travan and 5.25-Inch Tape Technologies.

ST. PAUL, Minn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 28, 1995--3M and Tandberg Data Storage have announced plans to work together to advance the Travan minicartridge platform and 5.25-inch data cartridge technology.

Tandberg Data (Oslo, Norway), an international supplier of tape drive technology, plans to advance Travan formats into the future for the PC, file server, workstation and multi-user segments. The products will be based on a unique drive and minicartridge interface included in a patent application filed by 3M and included in a Travan license to Tandberg Data.

Leading industry analysts believe Travan technology will expand the role of tape. They forecast that widespread industry support for a robust Travan platform will trigger new applications for minicartridges beyond backup and restore, such as multi-user and hierarchical storage management (HSM).

In the 5.25-inch tape market, Tandberg Data and 3M will work on advanced technology developments including servo writing for increased capacity and transfer rates. Plans call for Tandberg Data to begin marketing a 13 gigabyte (GB) drive to key original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) by the fourth quarter of 1995. The drive is expected to feature a transfer rate of 1.5 megabytes per second (MB/s). Next generation products based on this 5.25-inch technology will feature a doubling in both capacity and transfer rate.

"Working with 3M to advance Travan technology allows us to leverage our strengths in product design and manufacturing and to broaden our product offering to address a wider spectrum of tape applications," said Erik Solhjell, president, Tandberg Data Storage. "Tandberg Data's name is synonymous with quality and high performance solutions, and we are the leading supplier to the high-capacity quarter-inch segment of the market."

"Excellent cooperation for more than 20 years between 3M and Tandberg Data on the 5.25-inch platform sets the stage for our two companies to also advance the Travan platform," said Michael Stevens, business development director, 3M Data Storage Tape Technology Division. "However, certain market analysts have predicted a rapid decline in the 5.25-inch business. 3M believes there is a significant installed base of 5.25-inch users who require much higher performance than existing DDS-2, proposed DDS-3, and other technologies like DLT. 3M and Tandberg Data are developing the 13 GB and future products to meet those user needs and to be backward read/write compatible with existing 5.25-inch products."

Recently, Hewlett Packard's Colorado Memory Systems Division, Conner Peripherals, Iomega, and 3M announced tape products based on the Travan platform. Plus, Exabyte, Rexon, Sony, Pertec Memories, AIWA and TEAC have announced plans to develop products incorporating Travan technology. Minicartridge products with 400 MB (uncompressed) of capacity, based on the Travan platform, already have been launched. Products with up to 4 GB of capacity are expected later this year.

3M, together with Tandberg Data, and other licensees of Travan technology are investigating advanced media formulations, tracking density improvements, automation, and high-speed computer interfaces to enable high-capacity increases with the Travan platform, Stevens said.

Tandberg Data -- an Oslo-based company with U.S. operations headquartered in Simi Valley, Calif. -- is a leading supplier to OEMs such as IBM, Sun Microsystems, Digital Equipment Company (DEC), and Data General. Tandberg Data also has its own line of products marketed through distributors worldwide. For Tandberg Data product information, please call [phone].

Data cartridge technology, invented and patented by 3M (St. Paul, Minn.), is the world's most popular tape backup technology, boasting an installed base of more than 13 million drives, with more than three million drives shipping in 1995 alone.

3M is the world's largest supplier of branded data cartridges. For more information on data cartridge technology, contact 3M at [phone], extension 33. -0-

NOTE TO EDITORS: Travan is a trademark of 3M.

CONTACT: 3M Data Storage Products, St. Paul

Larry Teien, 612/736-5961

or

Fleishman-Hillard, Inc., Minneapolis/St. Paul

Gary Hornseth, 612/736-2881

[e-mail]

or

Tandberg Data Storage, Simi Valley, Calif.

Richard Severa, 805/579-1000