St. Paul, Minn. (March 27, 1995) -- 3M has formed a strategic alliance with PGSoft Inc., Pacific Grove, Calif., to develop a range of software products that will help turn tape into a general purpose storage medium.

The new software will work with tape drives and media based on the Quarter-Inch Cartridge (QIC) standard, and will be compatible with 3M's recently announced Travan™ technology, QIC-80 and QIC SCSI products.

Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

The software will allow tape to serve as an expansive file transport medium, in place of standard diskettes, and support the direct recording and playback of computer data, audio, video, and other multimedia files without the files consuming additional hard disk space.

With tape as a file transport medium, users will be able to quickly identify and transfer up to multi-gigabyte files between systems using high-capacity, relatively inexpensive minicartridges as though the cartridges were diskettes.

According to Tom Rolander, president and chief executive officer of PGSoft, the first product developed by the two companies will enable tape to become an extension to DOS and Windows devices, thereby sharing read/write privileges similar to hard disks.

From a user's perspective, tape will become the "T" drive, making it easily accessible via standard Windows applications including Windows File Manager. The products being developed by 3M and PGSoft will work with tape drives from multiple vendors, finally making tape an easy-to-use, interchangeable solution for the desktop, Rolander said.

A prototype of the software was demonstrated during a QIC standards meeting at Rancho Bernardo, Calif., on March 13. 3M and PGSoft plan a product introduction by the end of 1995.

According to Michael Stevens, business development director, 3M Data Storage Tape Technology Division, both companies expect the new software will enable users to produce, edit, and master high-capacity multimedia files on tape, and then transfer them to CD-ROM for distribution.

The new software also will eliminate the learning curve associated with using tape for backup/restore applications, Stevens added. This will save users training time and productivity dollars -- key benefits in attracting the millions of new PC users to tape technology.

Both companies expect the alliance to fuel significant growth in the "attach rate" of tape drives to PCs. The installed base of quarter-inch drives currently exceeds 11 million units, according to several market research organizations.

"This inventive software approach moves tape from a passive to an active role in desktop storage," said Ray Freeman, president, Freeman Associates, Inc., a Santa Barbara, Calif. market research firm. "It plugs the gap between the too-low capacity of diskettes and the higher-cost, non-transportable nature of hard disks."

"Our goal is to make using tape as comfortable and as natural as using a standard diskette," said Stevens. "With this new software, tape can be used with a wide range of applications, including universal file transfer and multimedia production, editing and playback.

"Minicartridge tape has never really been used for file transfer," Stevens said. "With the demand for cost-effective storage solutions increasing by the hour, tape is the only viable technology platform to meet this need."

"As digital multimedia and online access continue their exponential growth, storage options must keep pace," Rolander said. "With this development, the readily-accessible tape drive now becomes an excellent mechanism to store and play multimedia files."

Chip Off the CD-ROM Block
The 3M/PGSoft solution will take advantage of both the popular ISO 9660 file format now used for CD-ROM drives and the corresponding operating system extension, MSCDEX. Microsoft currently bundles the MSCDEX extension with DOS and Windows software.

In doing so, the 3M/PGSoft technology will eliminate the need for new device drivers as tape drives are introduced. By standardizing on ISO 9660 as a tape file format, 3M/PGSoft products will be compatible with all leading operating systems, including DOS, Windows 3.1x, Windows95 and Windows NT.

This compatibility will eliminate the need for application developers to build tape device drivers with each application. Elimination of this technical obstacle will provide OEMs with added incentive to incorporate tape drives into their systems, 3M's Stevens said.

According to Rolander, the core technology incorporated into the first product offering will also be used to develop a new family of software applications by PGSoft and other developers.

Users now rely on various alternatives to store and manage capacity-intensive files such as video, audio and still color images, Rolander said, noting that tape is the most cost-effective way to store these files.

PGSoft develops and markets system software extensions and applications that allow users to completely manage their desktop PCs. The company's products are marketed to OEMs, end users and developers worldwide.

Data cartridge technology, invented and patented by 3M, is the world's most popular desktop backup technology and boasts an installed base of more than 11 million drives, with three million drives shipped in 1994 alone.

3M is the world's largest manufacturer and marketer of branded minicartridges.

Travan is a trademark of 3M.
Windows is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation.

Copyright 1996 Imation. All rights reserved.