Rubrik: World-wide News/Products & News

Quantum: Acquisition of Privately Held Certance Will Expand Product and Intellectual Property Portfolio

Range of Leading Tape Technologies Targeting End-User Customer Baser

(23.10.04) - Quantum Corp. (NYSE:DSS) announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Certance, a privately held and leading global supplier of tape drives and data protection solutions. With the acquisition, Quantum will offer end-users an unparalleled range of leading tape technology choices for best meeting their individual backup, recovery and archive needs. The acquisition will also enhance Quantum's tape drive and media business by expanding its product and intellectual property portfolio, broadening its end-user customer base and further strengthening its revenue- and cash-generating foundation. The acquisition of Certance, which has been profitable for three consecutive years, is expected to be accretive in the combined companys' first year.

Under the terms of the definitive agreement, Quantum will acquire all of Certance for 60 million Dollar in an all-cash transaction, and integrate it into Quantum. This purchase price excludes the distribution to the sellers of up to 34 million Dollar cash from Certance's balance sheet. The closing of the transaction is subject to antitrust review, as well as other customary closing conditions, and Quantum expects the acquisition to close within the fourth calendar quarter of 2004.

"The announcement reinforces Quantum's commitment to providing customers with tape technologies best suited for current and future environments," said Rick Belluzzo, chairman and CEO of Quantum. "As a newly combined 1 billion Dollar company building on Quantum's and Certance's complementary strengths, we will offer the industry's broadest portfolio of tape and disk systems for backup, recovery and archive."

"This is a superb move because the two companies have historically been strongest in different parts of the market – Certance in the entry-level and Quantum in the mid-range," said Bob Abraham, president of Freeman Reports. "The combination will create operational synergies, benefiting end-users and helping to address the desire of system OEMs and tape automation providers to streamline supply chain management."

As a result of the Certance acquisition, Quantum will add Travan, DDS/DAT and LTO Ultrium-format technology products to its current portfolio of DLTtape drives, as well as a DAT-72 autoloader and a disk-to-disk-to-tape appliance for small and medium-size businesses (SMB). Quantum's media model will also benefit from the recurring revenue stream provided by media royalties and branded media products. The addition of LTO technology devices to Quantum's Storage Devices product lines will create greater alignment with Quantum's Storage Systems business, which already offers LTO Ultrium-format drives in its tape automation systems.

The complementary nature of this combination can be seen in more than just the end-users the two companies serve.  For example, while both companies sell through OEMs and the channel, Certance has a particularly robust channel business that aligns well with the strong relationships Quantum maintains with all major system OEMs and tape automation providers.  In addition, Certance's broad, global channel presence will reinforce the progress Quantum has made over the past year internationally in further expanding its branded channel business and pursuing opportunities for increased growth.

Both Certance and Quantum have a strong intellectual property base and history of customer-driven innovation in their tape drive products.  Certance is an established leader in DDS/DAT development and a co-founder of the LTO Ultrium-format technology.  It was also the first company to introduce a disk-to-disk-to-tape appliance for SMB customers offering high-end functionality at an SMB-affordable price point.  Quantum created DLTtape technology and introduced the first tape drive with over a half-terabyte of capacity. The company is also the leader in developing device-level manageability tools, including DLTSage and DLTIce. DLTSage is an award winning diagnostic architecture for predicting and preventing tape drive and media failures, and DLTIce serves the burgeoning regulatory compliance market by providing Write Once, Read Many (WORM) functionality using a standard Super DLTtape II media cartridge.

Quantum's acquisition of Certance is just the latest example of actions the company has taken over the past year to continue at the forefront of meeting customers' evolving storage needs. Last fall, it introduced three best-in-class products: the SDLT 600 tape drive, PX720 tape library and DX100 disk-based enhanced backup system. This summer Quantum not only launched DLTIce but also announced a new DLT roadmap that includes plans to deliver over 10 terabytes on a single media cartridge within the next decade.

Also over the past year, Certance has been the first in the industry to introduce a range of new products, including an LTO-3 tape drive, a DAT-72 autoloader, and a disk-to-disk-to-tape appliance for SMB customers.

About Certance

Certance is a worldwide market leader providing the broadest range of tape backup products and data protection solutions with a commitment to innovative, cost-effective data protection for companies of all sizes. Headquartered in Costa Mesa, California, Certance produces a full array of data protection solutions, including LTO Ultrium-format, DDS/DAT and Travan tape technologies, and DPA-disk based technologies, including CP 3100 data protection solutions.  With more than 12 million tape devices installed worldwide, the company designs, manufactures and markets a wide range of solutions to meet the backup, restore and archive needs of virtually every platform from notebooks and PCs to enterprise servers. (ma)

Quantum Storage Germany GmbH

Tel. (089) 930806-0, Fax (089) 94548860

E-Mail: info.de@quantum.com

Web: www.quantum.com

Certance

ehemals Seagate Removable Storage Solutions

Kontakt: Debra Redmond

Tel. (001-714) 6412474

E-Mail: debra.redmond@certance.com

Web: www.certance.com