Procom DataFORCE Receives High Praise From InformationWeek Lab Review; Procom's High Performance CD-ROM-Caching Appliance: ``Expertise is Evident in Mature Design''.

SANTA ANA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 3, 1999--

In an InformationWeek Labs review, July 26 issue, entitled "CD-ROM Servers Alter Apps," Santa Ana, Calif.-based Procom Technology Corp. (NASDAQ:PRCM) received high praise from the reviewer, Graham Posner.

The review covered the Procom DataFORCE(TM) 250 and the Pioneer New Media Technologies DRM-6NX.

Posner, a network manager with D. H. Scott & Co., a California accounting firm, was commissioned to put the two products through their paces. He "tested the servers on an accounting firm network with about 25 users. The firm uses a number of reference CDs for tax and accounting information." According to the review, "Both attach directly to a network and make CD-ROMs available with little effort, but there were some substantial differences."

In the "At a Glance" section for the DataFORCE, strengths were listed as: "provides very fast access to CD-ROM data and easy to set up under NetWare. Unlike the other product tested, in the "Weaknesses" listing there were "none."

With a readership of 355,000, InformationWeek is viewed as a leading source of information for IT managers on news and analysis, new products, technology, vendors and trends.

Procom's award-winning DataFORCE Series is the industry's leading cost/performance CD-ROM networking system, offering up to 275 CDs running at hard drive speeds across multiple platforms. Ideal for users in workgroups, schools, libraries and government agencies, it allows networked CD sharing, even in mixed platform environments. The tested DataFORCE 250 provides for 250 CDs and the DataFORCE 275 for 275 CDs. They are ideal solutions for high capacity applications, while offering an extremely competitive price point.

"The InformationWeek review and findings are very significant for Procom and for potential CD-ROM server users," said Page Tagizad, Procom's director of product management. The DataFORCE was tested in a real-world environment of an accounting firm by a network manager, entrusted with handling the vast amounts of data at his company. Since the accounting firm uses a number of reference CDs for tax and accounting information, performance and reliability, as well as ease of use, are critical.

Posner said that in less than 30 minutes he moved the firm's tax research software (10 CD-ROMs) from an array of CD-ROM drives to the Procom unit. "The data is available on the network in five minutes (it's available as soon as a CD is mounted, before caching begins.) Once CDs were inserted into the drives, the server began caching the CD-ROM information in its internal hard disk. Once the copying process was complete, the data is available directly from the hard drive. The QuickStart sheet was the only documentation I needed."

In the conclusion to the review, Posner said, "In all, the DataFORCE proved the more capable and better-engineered machine, a plug-and-play network appliance, as well as the best bet for future upgrades with its roomy, easy-to-open case and ability to add hard disks. It's evident that a lot of thought has gone into making the DataFORCE machines easy to set up, use and support."

As a product category, Posner explained, "CD-ROM servers that cache CD-ROMs on hard disks for very high performance are becoming appliances. These devices copy CD-ROM information to an internal drive, speeding access many times and provide the ability to serve as many as a couple of hundred CD-ROMs from a single box the size of a PC, rather than requiring a drive for each CD served."

About Procom Technology

Procom Technology Inc. is a pioneer and leader in data storage appliances, having provided innovative reliable data access and protection solutions for more than a decade. Procom has been world revenue and market-share leader in CD/DVD-ROM networking products, and is a major developer of network attached storage (NAS) systems for enterprise, workgroup, ISP and e-commerce applications. These appliances set the standards in affordability and performance. They include plug-and-play protected storage for workgroups, cross-platform file sharing for UNIX(a), Windows NT(a) and the World Wide Web, and "virtual zero downtime" symmetric fault tolerant filers for transaction-intensive usage.

Major corporations such as CitiBank, General Electric, Sprint, GTE and PepsiCo, as well as government agencies worldwide, including the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife, depend on Procom appliances for fast, simple, reliable, cost-effective access to network-stored data. Procom products are offered in more than 90 countries. They are covered by comprehensive warranty plans and backed by one of the industry's most respected technical support teams.

Procom has headquarters at 1821 East Dyer Road, Santa Ana, CA 92705-5700, and can be reached by phone at 949/852-1000, by fax at 949/852-1221, by e-mail: [e-mail] or on the Internet at http://www.procom.com. Procom is publicly traded on the NASDAQ National Market System under the symbol "PRCM."

(a) A trademark or trade name of an entity other than Procom.