SyQuest High Performance Removable Hard Drive Cartridges to be Marketed by Kao InfoSystems Under the Kao Brand Name; Kao to sell SyQuest 3.5-inch and 5.25-inch removable cartridges starting in January '96; Cartridges feature increased capacity, data transportability and security and fast backup

Business Wire, Nov 27, 1995

FREMONT, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 27, 1995--SyQuest Technology (NASDAQ:SYQT), the worldwide leader in removable cartridge hard drives, announced that Kao Infosystems Company, North America's leading software duplicator, CD-ROM replicator, fulfillment services provider, and one of the world's largest diskette manufacturers, will market Kao brand SyQuest high performance 3.5-inch and 5.25-inch removable hard drive cartridges starting in January 1996.

Kao brand SyQuest 3.5-inch removable hard drive cartridges with formatted capacities of 105MB, 270MB and, most recently, 135MB, for the new EZ135 Drive and Kao brand SyQuest 5.25-inch removable hard drive cartridges with formatted capacities of 44MB, 88MB, and 200MB offer increased capacity, near-line storage, data transportability, systems sharing, data security and fast backup. SyQuest drives are used across the entire spectrum of data storage environments and applications and have special appeal to those people who need to save and transport data-intensive applications including desktop publishing, imaging, multimedia and music composition.

In August, SyQuest Technology began shipping production quantities of its new, record-selling 135MB 3.5-inch EZ135 Drive, which was designed and tailored to meet the secondary storage needs of the consumer small office/home office market. To date, over two million SyQuest disk drives, and nine million cartridges are installed worldwide.

David Fernandez, Kao Infosystems Company marketing manager, said, "Kao brand SyQuest high performance removable hard drive cartridges are a logical addition to Kao's family of media products and are synergistic to the markets we serve with our Kao brand diskettes, quarter-inch data cartridges, magneto-optical (M-O) disks, digital data storage tapes (DDS) and compact-disc recordables (CD-Rs). In addition, they will provide access to a new and growing market."

Marketed under the Kao brand, the SyQuest cartridges will be sold to end users through Kao Infosystems' national branded sales force to office products superstores, computer superstores, and other mass merchandising and retail outlets. The Kao brand cartridges will be sold in the U.S., Canada and Europe.

Kao Infosystems is a wholly owned subsidiary of Kao Corporation of America, a wholly owned subsidiary of Kao Corporation, Japan, an $8.9 billion conglomerate established in 1887 that develops, manufactures and markets personal care, industrial, chemical and information products.

Founded in 1982 and headquartered in Fremont, CA, SyQuest Technology is the world standard in removable cartridge Winchester disk drives. SyQuest (SYQT) is publicly traded on NASDAQ's National Market System. For customer information, call 510/226-4000 or 1-800/245-2278. -0-

Note to Editors: SyQuest, EZ135 Drive(TM) and the SyQuest logo are registered trademarks of SyQuest Technology. KAO is a registered trademark of Kao Corp.

CONTACT: SyQuest Technology Corp.

Michelle Mihalick, 510/226-5358

or

Kao Infosystems Corp.

Dorin Thibault, 1-800/274-5520