NEWS ANNOUNCEMENT

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contacts:
Paula Brici Bordigon
Lages & Associates
(714) 453-8080

Robert Smith
Elms Systems Corporation
(714) 461-3207


AIIM '97 Booth #331


ELMS SYSTEMS ANNOUNCES
INDUSTRY'S FIRST VARIABLE PACKET WRITING CD LIBRARY

Network Solution Provides Easy to Use CD-R Capabilities,
Leads Move of CDs to Mainstream Storage


         NEW YORK, April 15, 1997 -- Elms Systems Corporation, innovators in digital storage solutions, today bolstered its technology leadership by announcing the industry's first integrated CD recording and access solution to incorporate variable packet writing technology.

         Slated to ship for Windows NT in third quarter 1997, the new solution is being demonstrated at this week's AIIM trade show and conference in New York. Elms is known for its Digital Versatile LibraryTM (DVLTM) CD library, a new class of product launched earlier this year with breakthroughs in software integration and pricing. The Elms DVL stores up to 100 CDs on-line in five magazines with 20 CDs each and one to four CD drives. Pricing for Elms' DVL starts at $5,495.

         With today's announcement, the company continues its value leadership by providing its customers cost-effective CD libraries incorporating leading-edge technology.

         Elms' variable packet writing solution enables the transparent storage and retrieval of data in Elms' DVL and allows 65GB of data to be written to CD-R in small "packets." It also allows users to access data without having to know its physical volume location.

         The new Elms solution offers truly seamless network recording and access capabilities in a CD library. Drive letter access allows the CD-R to appear to the operating system as another drive letter. Files can easily be copied to and accessed from a single network drive letter using standard operating system commands.

         "This technology is important because it offers users a very economical near-line storage solution that enables users to randomly access information. While current CD-R methods are quite effective, mastering a CD is somewhat complicated to the average user and is a specific planned operation. Variable packet writing allows users to simply drag and drop files to the CD-R at any time," explained Robert Smith, Elms vice president of marketing.

         "With variable packet writing, saving to CD-R is as easy as saving to your hard drive, enabling CD-R to fast become a secondary storage medium," said Smith. "There are two key components needed to bringing CD to the forefront of secondary storage, affordability and superior product design. Elms will now deliver them both with a cost effective solution," he added.


Variable Packet Writing and Aggregate File System Features

         The variable packet writing software, developed by Smart Storage, offers a simple drag-and-drop user model approach to CD recording. The technology allows data to be written file-by-file until a CD-R is full with minimal overhead between data packets -- less than 0.5 percent of overhead compared to that of typical CD-R multi-session methods -- and eliminates the buffer underrun problems associated with traditional recording methods.

         With incremental, drive letter, and ISO 9660 standard recording, users can easily create CDs, which are universally accessible throughout today's installed base of more than 100 million CD-ROM drives.

         The aggregate file system, also developed and patented by Smart Storage, combines the directory structures of all CDs into a single common directory structure. The major advantage of this file system is that it allows users to access data without having to know the physical volume location of the data across both media and hardware.


Company Background

         Elms Systems Corporation is a leader in digital library solutions for affordable CD sharing and publishing. The company was founded in 1995 and is headquartered in Irvine, Calif. Elms develops a line of CD software called PanoramaTM and a CD library, the DVL, aimed at the business and network user.