Plasmon Completes Cygnet 12-inch Library Business Acquisition

Minneapolis, MN, January 10, 2000. Plasmon IDE has announced the completion of the acquisition and full transfer of the 12-inch format optical library manufacturing business from Cygnet Storage Solutions Inc., of San Jose to Plasmon's US sales and marketing headquarters in Eden Prairie, MN.

Plasmon acquired the 12-inch optical storage library business from Cygnet for the sum of $3.65 million US in July of 1999.

One of only two large format library manufacturers in the world, Plasmon is incorporating their 12-inch optical TrueWorm Technology^TM drives and optical media in these mass storage libraries. The new Plasmon 1800 series optical libraries will also support Plasmon's fourth generation 12-inch drives and media, which will soon begin volume shipping.

With this acquisition and the delivery of the fourth generation (30GB) 12-inch drives and media, Plasmon substantially increases the Eden Prairie plant's size and rein forces its growing market share in the optical storage market.

"This strategic move of adding automation to our existing WORM drive and 12-inch optical media technology business advances Plasmon's vision of being the leading world-wide supplier of high-end removable data storage solutions," according to Plasmon President Rob McPherson. "This step fully integrates 12-inch products into Plasmon's existing broad range of MO, CD/DVD-RAM optical, and tape based storage libraries."

Utilities, banks, brokerages, federal, state and local government agencies and businesses that require large storage capacity combined with a complete date recovery system capability, have identified WORM as the storage technology unparalleled in security. With Plasmon's new 30 GB drive, a 141-slot library can deliver up to 4.2 terabytes of storage on secure, 12-inch WORM media.

The 12-inch libraries have three models, which range from 22 to 141 platters, and incorporate one to five optical drives. The current storage capacity range, with 12 GB optical drives, is from 264 GB to 1.7 TB and is expanding to 4.2 TB with the addition of the new 30 GB drive. Prices range from $126,000 to $263,000 depending on the number of drives and the storage capacity.

Founded in 1987, Plasmon Plc. provides the industry's most complete line of jukeboxes, drives and disks based on tape, CD/DVD, 5.25 inch Magneto Optical and 12-inch TrueWORM technologies; principal products include jukeboxes, media and enabling software. Manufacturing operations for media and software products are based at its UK headquarter offices in Cambridge, while drives, jukeboxes and associated robotics are developed and manufactured in Minneapolis and Colorado by two U.S. divisions, Plasmon IDE and Plasmon LMS. The company currently has 500 employees.

Plasmon LMS which designs, manufactures and markets ½-inch tape drives, 12-inch optical drives and media, has been producing mass storage tape and optical products since 1984. With more than a decade of engineering expertise in data storage automation, Plasmon's IDE division manufactures MO jukeboxes, tape libraries, DVD-RAM, CD-ROM and CD-R libraries and markets a wide range of optical media.

Plasmon's U.S. Sales and Marketing headquarters are located at: 9625 West 76th St., Eden Prairie, MN 55344; tel: (800) 451-6845 or (952) 946-4100; fax: (952) 946-4141; http://www.plasmon.com. e-mail: sales@plasmon.com