Former Philips division debuts digital tape back-up drive

One of the youngest vendors at this year's forum is OnStream, a storage company using Advanced Digital Recording (ADR) technology. The US-based company was showing off its tape back-up storage systems that use ADR technology developed by Philips Electronics. OnStream is itself a spin-off of Philips. Its factory and R&D labs are in Holland, and it has been using this week's event to attract system builders with promises of 15 to 20 per cent margin on some of its drives. Nigel Dear, OnStream sales manager for northern Europe, said the SCSI drives offered high capacity - 30 to 50 Gb - at cheap prices due to this technology. The DI30, with 30Gb, sells at $199. "There is good margin to be made for system builders on these fast, high capacity products. Prices can be kept at a minimum as the number of components inside has been drastically reduced," said Dear. Brendan Sherry, OnStream VP for Europe, described tape back-up as a "traditionally sleepy marketplace," but also encouraged assemblers to take an interest in the products using ADR. He said the company had raised $125 million from investors, such as GE Capital. ®