NEWS ANNOUNCEMENT

Contacts:

Paula Brici Bordigon

Lages & Associates

(714) 453-8080

Robert Smith

Elms Systems Corporation

(714) 461-3207

CD LIBRARY FOR PERSONAL COMPUTERS SHATTERS PRICE BARRIER, LAUNCHES NEW CLASS OF STORAGE

New Solution Automates Access to CD-Based Information

         IRVINE, Calif., January 15, 1997 -- A new class of product, the CD library, was announced today by Elms Systems Corporation.

         More than two years of software and hardware development have been invested by Elms in its DVL^TM (Digital Versatile Library^TM) to yield a new methodology for using and managing CDs in business and professional organizations with a few to 5,000 or more discs.

         Differentiated by unprecedented low price and ease of integration with existing PC-based applications, the Elms CD library system is being offered at a breakthrough price starting at $5,495 (MSRP), which is less than half of the alternative CD jukebox and tower configurations.

         "Our broad market consists of users who are crossing the threshold of inefficiency by manually loading CDs one at a time," said Robert Smith, vice president marketing. "They may have looked at CD towers and CD jukeboxes, but could not get past the price tag."

         The Elms DVL stores up to 100 CDs on-line in five magazines with 20 CDs each and one to four CD drives. The on-line capacity of 65 gigabytes is a fraction of the ultimate library capacity that can be managed by Elms' Panorama^TM software, which organizes and tracks up to 5,000 CDs in magazines or 3.2 terabytes of capacity.

         Panorama provides the user with a tab foldered user interface. The first tab is the Explore library tab and provides an "Explorer-like" interface that supports drag-and-drop. To load a CD, just drag it to a drive. To unload, just drag it back. The other tab is the Browse library page which gives the user a tabular database view of their CD library. The Browse page can be filled with searches or by dragging CDs, magazines or DVLs to the page.

         Panorama utilizes two databases to make it easy to find the CD the user needs. The first database is relational and is used for user definable fields, dates of use, check out and in, owner, description and load count. The other database was designed by Elms and is specialized to allow searching for file names. The database technology makes the Elms solution the fastest, as users can search for files or discs using the database, thus avoiding loading each disc to perform a search. "This is the first solution outside specialized applications that gives users the benefit of truly fast file location and retrieval," Smith pointed out.

         The other advantage of the database is that both on-line and off-line CDs are searchable by the user. Panorama presents the user with a 'Magazine Shelf" metaphor that allows the user to browse off-line CDs and their files as if they were on-line. If a file is stored on an off-line disc, the software identifies the bar-coded magazine to be loaded. If the file is on an on-line disc, then Panorama can load it.

         "Among the many advanced features of Panorama is unprecedented search capabilities and the ability to define a program to run for each CD," Smith said. "Customization tools extend the functionality to a level of automation that users expect from today's PC applications."

         Users can view directories of all on-line and off-line CDs. Off-line CDs in magazines are stored on the 'magazine shelf' and loose CDs are stored on the CD rack. These features were previously associated with much more expensive systems. "Now you can automatically search job numbers, customers, applications, departments and countless other attributes with one click," Smith said.

         The DVL's easy to use, barcoded magazine facilitates organization of the library to minimize the need for swapping during a job. Barcoding on the magazine keeps the system software informed as to what CDs are on-line. Each magazine has room for standard Avery labels which can be printed by Panorama or other software.

         "With a single-drive DVL the user can get started for just over $5,000 and upgrade as needed," Smith said. "As faster drives become available the DVL can easily be upgraded by the user without any special tools or training."

         Panorama also offers features to check CDs out and in, the ability to create and store reports, print labels for magazines, customize the database, define five fields, create typeable fields in the database (text, date, currency and value list), set up searchable user fields, build drop down data input lists and a host of other features. Panorama runs under Windows 95 and Windows NT Workstation.

         The basic MSRP of $5,495 includes the CD-ROM library, one CD-ROM drive, Panorama software for Windows 95/NT, five magazines and a SCSI-II interface kit. The maximum configuration, which includes four CD-ROM drives and a 4GB hard drive, Panorama and the SCSI interface kit carries an MSRP of $8,795.

         The pricing breakthrough is attributed to a completely new design of a CD storage and robotics peripheral, for which patents have been applied. The company's innovative product, the DVL, is manufactured by Elms in Irvine.

         High demand for the new class of storage device will come from applications that regularly use document image, data, developer network, clipart, font, photo, music, and many other graphics or multimedia-related CD libraries. Other products from Elms will address the needs of short-run CD duplication and network users.

         Elms System 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, CA. Elms develops a line of CD software called Panorama and a CD library, the DVL, aimed at the business and network user. The company can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.elms.com.

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