Adaptec expands industry reach with entry into burgeoning enterprise computing market; Product offerings build on company's engineering leadership in I O hardware and software to offer network server solutions

Business Wire, Jan 23, 1995

MILPITAS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 23, 1995--Adaptec Inc. (NASDAQ:ADPT), a market leader in input/output (I/O) technology, Monday announced its aggressive entry into the enterprise computing market.

This development marks a business expansion for Adaptec, which just last week announced record third quarter revenues and earnings along with its 42nd consecutive profitable quarter. In recent years, Adaptec has leveraged its I/O technology leadership to enter such emerging markets as portable computing and multimedia.

Adaptec's system and software expertise has enabled the company to enter the rapidly growing enterprise computing market, where new applications with business-critical data requirements are demanding manageability and data protection.

The cornerstone of this new business opportunity is based on various levels of Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks (RAID) technology, which brings the highest level of data protection to enterprise computing. The company's products enable RAID systems at unprecedented price/performance for entry-level and mid-range servers. Industry analysts project that by 1996 nearly 75 percent of all systems will use network servers.

Building Better Servers

The first products in the company's Build A Better Server family of solutions are designed to help IS managers focus on four critical elements that determine the success of enterprise-wide servers: manageability, availability, performance and scalability (MAPS).

-- Manageability - Remote management, fault detection and performance profiling of the I/O subsystem maximize servers' "up time."

-- Availability - Fault-tolerant mass storage subsystems help protect business-critical data.

-- Performance - High-performance buses (PCI, SCSI) and connecting peripherals through multiple Fast SCSI channels maximize servers' data throughput.

-- Scalability - Flexible server data subsystems provide growth and performance potential, and protect server investments.

To provide MAPS to the enterprise computing market, Adaptec introduced a suite of new products, which includes I/O management software and host adapter cards. (Note to editors: A separate press release with details on these new products was issued today.)

"Adaptec is continuing to expand its business opportunities by identifying key growth markets, then aggressively attacking those markets with products that leverage our business and technology expertise," said John G. Adler, chairman and chief executive officer.

"We see the enterprise computing market as a tremendous opportunity for Adaptec to once again expand its industry reach, and become a leading supplier of I/O solutions for organizations where managing and protecting centralized data is critical to success."

Over the next year the company will continue to develop and introduce products for its Build A Better Server family that respond to the needs of the client server market by providing enterprise computing with storage systems for servers that meet the feature requirements of high bandwidth for performance and the functions of redundancy, reliability, manageability and scalability.

Adaptec Inc. designs, manufactures and markets IOware product solutions such as Small Computer Systems Interface (SCSI) host adapter boards, chips and software for personal computers, and proprietary SCSI and EIDE/IDE VLSI circuits.

Founded in 1981 and headquartered in Milpitas, Adaptec is recognized as the design pioneer and market leader in SCSI and I/O technology and is the developer of the industry-standard I/O operating environment, ASPI. Adaptec currently employs approximately 1,700 people who serve customers worldwide. -0-

Note to Editors: Adaptec and IOware are trademarks of Adaptec Inc., which may be registered in some jurisdictions.

CONTACT: Adaptec Inc., Milpitas

Jane Dryden, 408/957-4893