HP and Sony Collaborate to Improve Capacity and Performance of Digital Audio Tape Drives

Palo Alto, California and Tokyo (ots/PRNewswire) - HP and
Sony Corporation today announced an agreement to create the next
generation Digital Audio Tape (http://www.datmgm.com/) format - the
DAT 320 - providing improved performance and capacity over existing
DAT drives.

HP and Sony are jointly developing the DAT or Digital Data
Storage (DDS) standard, but will separately offer their own DAT 320
tape drives and cartridges. Similar to previous generations of
DAT/DDS, the DAT 320 will be an open standard, which ensures partners
can continue to obtain license rights.

Small and midsize businesses as well as enterprises with remote
offices use tape to archive and back up data as a key component of
their disaster recovery strategies. IDC forecasts the tape market
will generate more than $1.4 billion in 2009.(1) The industry is
experiencing healthy performance since tape provides SMBs with a
cost-effective storage solution to handle the massive increase in
digital data.

"The DAT 320 offers customers and partners a data protection
solution that delivers unmatched performance and capacity," said Bob
Wilson, vice president and general manager, Storage Platforms
Division, HP. "Combining the expertise of two industry leaders that
share a legacy of delivering proven DAT/DDS technology will result in
a new standard for tape archiving with the low cost of ownership and
reliability DAT customers have grown to expect."

"Demand for higher-capacity data backup and archiving continues
to be important for small and midsize businesses and enterprise
environments," said Masayoshi Sugiyama, president, Chemical Device
and Energy Business Group, and executive vice president of Sony
Corporation. "Combining HP's technical base, which includes six DAT
generations, and Sony's 50-year history in magnetic recording
technology, including Metal Evaporated based media, will provide a
compelling solution to meet the demands of higher-capacity and
easy-to-manage data protection."

Twice the capacity and performance

Businesses rely on the volume-leading DAT format to back up and
restore critical business data. This provides protection against the
loss of data in the case of events such as system failures, operator
error, theft and natural disasters.

"Tape customers are concerned about outgrowing their existing
tape drives and do not want to switch away from a cost-effective and
trusted technology like DAT/DDS," said Robert Amatruda, research
director, Tape and Removable Storage, IDC. "The use of tape storage
to support backup and archiving is very popular and the doubled
capacity with the DAT 320 will be an ideal choice for small to
midsize businesses who have limited space for extra hardware."

With backup speeds of up to 86 gigabytes (GB) per hour with 2:1
data compression, the DAT 320 will offer up to 320 GB of capacity on
a single cartridge - compared with 160 GB, available from the current
DAT 160 format. The DAT 320 also will consume fewer watts per GB than
previous generations and will be backwards compatible with the DAT
160.

Pricing and availability

HP and Sony will offer the same base hardware for the DAT 320,
but will develop unique features within the firmware configuration to
sell the DAT 320 tape drives and media through their own branded and
OEM business channels.

More information about models, configurations, feature sets and
prices will be announced by the companies separately. General
availability is expected in 2009.

(1) IDC, "Market Analysis: At 'If Sold OEM' Values. Worldwide
Tape Drive 2007-2011 Forecast and Analysis," by Robert Amatruda, May
2007.

ots Originaltext: HP and Sony Corporation
Im Internet recherchierbar: http://www.presseportal.de

Contact:
Media Contacts: Jason Treu, HP, +1-214-893-3096, jason.treu@hp.com.
Kara Yi, Burson-Marsteller for HP, +1-415-591-4086, kara.yi@bm.com.
Koji Kurata, Sony Corporation, +1-81(3)-6748-2200,
koji.kurata@jp.sony.com. Elizabeth Boukis, Sony Electronics PR,
+1-408-352-4593, elizabeth.boukis@am.sony.com