New York, N.Y. (June 18, 1996) -- Plans to establish the LS-120 diskette as the next standard for desktop storage were strengthened today as Hitachi-Maxell Ltd. (Tokyo) and Mitsubishi Electric Corp. (Tokyo) announced plans to manufacture products based on the new, high-capacity diskette platform.

In separate statements, Maxell announced it will begin selling LS-120 diskettes in the United States and Japan in August, and Mitsubishi announced it will manufacture LS-120 drives for supply to PC makers.

3M's data storage business, which will become part of Imation Corp. on July 1, developed the LS-120 technology along with Compaq Computer Corp., Matsushita-Kotobuki Electronics Industries, Ltd (MKE), and O.R. Technology.

"The companies supporting LS-120 technology are aiming to establish the LS-120 diskette as the next standard for removable storage," said Phil Devin, vice president and chief analyst, Dataquest. "The presence of multiple drive and media suppliers is a significant step toward that goal and a new, competitive boost for LS-120 technology."

"Mitsubishi and Maxell are companies with impressive manufacturing, distribution and marketing capabilities," added Devin. "Not only do second sources bring assured product availability, they typically bring fresh approaches to cost reduction and manufacturing innovation."

"Capacity needs are skyrocketing, but users like the familiarity of diskettes and they have a lot of them," said Maxell's Michael Golacinski, executive vice president, sales and marketing. "LS-120 technology offers the best of both worlds because the drive can read and write to standard 1.44 MB diskettes. This technology should be very popular among system OEMs."

3M expects that other leading OEMs will announce plans to market and manufacture products based on LS-120 technology this year.

"After reviewing the high-capacity diskette solutions, we determined that LS-120 technology offers users the best combination of capacity, performance and value," said Toshikazu Hayashi, general manger of Mitsubishi's disk drive business, Koriyama, Japan. "Because of LS-120 technology's backward compatibility, familiarity and potential migration into notebook computers, Mitsubishi believes that the LS-120 diskette is poised to become the next standard."

3M is the world's leading supplier of branded, removable media for data storage applications. On July 1, 3M's data storage business will become part of Imation Corp., the new imaging and information company being spun-off from 3M. Imation, which will be an independent, publicly held company with revenues of $2.25 billion (1995 figures), will be headquartered in Oakdale, Minn.

Copyright 1996 Imation. All rights reserved.