FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Iomega Announces Strategic Relationship with SONICblue’s Rio Division for Future Technology Offerings
ROY, Utah, March 27, 2001 – Iomega Corporation (NYSE: IOM), a global leader in data management solutions, announced today that it will work with Rio, a division of SONICblue Incorporated (Nasdaq:SBLU), to incorporate Iomega’s internal 100MB PocketZip(TM) drive into future Rio(R) offerings.
“Even before we announced our new 100MB PocketZip drive earlier this month, we knew we were going to create excitement among industry leaders,” said Bruce Albertson, president and CEO, Iomega Corporation. “It’s gratifying to be starting at the top with Rio, the pioneer and market leader in portable digital audio players, as our first 100MB PocketZip OEM partner.”
Iomega’s new PocketZip 100MB drive uses matchbook-sized 100MB disks that are protected from scratches by a durable metal shell. PocketZip 100MB disks will retail for as little as $10 each, lowering the cost of removable storage to as little as ten cents per megabyte in an easily swappable and sharable format.
“Iomega has done its homework on the new PocketZip drive,” said Jim Cady, president of Rio. “We think it will be a solid addition to the mix of storage options we plan to offer in the future.”
PocketZip 100MB disks are fully rewritable and do not need to be physically flipped in the drive to read their full capacity. PocketZip-based devices can also double as an external storage device when connected to a computer, making them an ideal portable alternative for backing up, editing and updating large files. The new 100MB PocketZip drive is an addition to Iomega’s existing line of 40MB drives and disks, which Iomega will continue to manufacture and support.
“We think the combination of the technologies and brands of Iomega and Rio will be a great one-two punch,” said Doug Collier, senior vice president, marketing and product management, Iomega Corporation. “Our Iomega HipZip player has already quickly driven acceptance of the PocketZip platform with its skip-free reliability and affordability. Now we’re enabling Rio to offer future customers the cost advantage of 100MB PocketZip music disks for creating portable digital music collections.”
Designed for a new generation of digital audio devices and other products, PocketZip disks are serialized to integrate with popular digital rights management (DRM) systems from Microsoft, InterTrust, and others (support for InterTrust’s DRM has been announced and is in development). PocketZip disks enable secure content to be downloaded and locked to the disk itself, an option not available with most current storage formats. With PocketZip disks, consumers can enjoy downloading and listening to both free and secure music or spoken word content on any compatible player, much as they can today with their collection of CDs.
About Rio (www.riohome.com)
Rio, a division of SONICblue Incorporated, is a pioneer and acknowledged leader in digital audio. Focused on delivering a family of digital audio products designed for various lifestyles, Rio is dedicated to engineering superior portable, home and car digital audio products for consumers.
About Iomega
Iomega Corporation (NYSE:IOM) manufactures and markets the award-winning Zip(R), Jaz(R) and PocketZip(TM) drives and disks, the HipZip(TM) digital audio player, the FotoShow(TM) digital image center, LifeWorks(TM) software, and Iomega QuikSync(TM) software; Iomega also markets Iomega CD-RW drives, Iomega CompactFlash(TM) and SmartMedia(TM) cards and the Iomega Microdrive(TM) miniature hard drive. Iomega’s products help people to save, share, manage and create important information such as Internet downloads, audio files, personal photographs, spreadsheets, and slides, while protecting that content from viruses and hackers. Used in homes, businesses, government and educational facilities and by creative professionals everywhere, Iomega storage solutions are the enabling technologies preferred by millions. The Company can be reached at 1-888-4-IOMEGA (888-446-6342), or on the Web at http://www.iomega.com.
NOTE: The statements contained in this release regarding development, production and distribution of products incorporating PocketZip 100MB drives, anticipated product availability, integration with DRM solutions, future applications for the PocketZip 100MB drives and all other statements that are not purely historical, are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All such forward-looking statements are based upon information available to Iomega as of the date hereof, and Iomega disclaims any intention or obligation to update any such forward-looking statements. Actual results could differ materially from current expectations. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to, the successful completion of product development and testing, market acceptance of, and demand for, Rio products or PocketZip technology, any difficulties encountered in ramping up production or other manufacturing issues, including component availability and pricing, co-development, production, and distribution issues, product pricing and conformity to specifications, dependence upon third party suppliers, implementation of DRM solutions and availability of secured content, competition, intellectual property rights and other risks and uncertainties identified in the reports filed from time to time by Iomega with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including Iomega’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2000, and its most recent Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q.
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Copyright(c) 2001 Iomega Corporation. All rights reserved. Iomega, Zip, Jaz, PocketZip, HipZip, FotoShow, Predator, QuikSync and LifeWorks are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Iomega Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Microdrive is a trademark of IBM Corporation and is used with permission. Rio is a registered trademark of RioPort, Inc. and is used by SONICblue under license from RioPort, Inc. Certain other product names, brand names and company names may be trademarks or designations of their respective owners.