Iomega Announces OEM And Joint Technology Development Agreement with Thomson’s Grass Valley

Iomega Corporation Announces OEM And Joint Technology Development Agreement with Thomson’s Grass Valley

Iomega’s REV Drive To Be Integrated Into Grass Valley Products This Year

New Delhi - June 22, 2005 – Iomega Corporation (NYSE: IOM), a global leader in data storage and one of the major players in India, renowned for its innovative data storage solutions celebrating 25 years of business in 2005, and Thomson (Euronext Paris: 18453; NYSE: TMS) today announced an OEM and joint technology development agreement under which Thomson’s Grass Valley™ business will integrate the Iomega® REV™ drive and removable hard disk media into a number of new Grass Valley products, making affordable, off-the-shelf, IT-based storage media and workflows broadly accessible to the professional audio and video industry.

Under the agreement, Grass Valley will integrate Iomega® REV™ removable hard disk technology into a number of new products, starting with the Grass Valley ProLine of Professional audio/video (ProAV) products. The first of these products to feature Iomega REV built-in drives is the Grass Valley Turbo™ iDDR (intelligent digital disk recorder), which was announced in May. Iomega and Grass Valley will also work to develop REV technologies for a broader set of applications.

Iomega REV technology, which includes open, standards-based 35 GB removable disk media and drives, combines the best advantages of tape media and hard-drive systems for a superior solution ideally suited for professional video and audio users. With removable media available for less than $60 and capable of holding more than two hours of 25 Mb/s SD or HD video, the combination of Iomega’s REV technology and Grass Valley’s leading-edge products will open up many unique, powerful applications within the broadcast and ProAV markets.

"Iomega’s REV drive offers the professional audio/visual markets a cost-effective storage platform with remarkable capacity, throughput, and durability," said Werner Heid, president and CEO, Iomega Corporation. "Coupled with Grass Valley’s industry-leading product development and marketing expertise, REV-based products will provide an off-the-shelf, open technology platform for the professional audio and video markets. We are excited about working with Grass Valley to showcase the superior capabilities of REV technology for professional storage needs in this growing vertical market. This agreement illustrates the enormous market potential of REV technology, particularly in other vertical markets that currently rely on tape."

Marc Valentin, president of Thomson’s Grass Valley business, said, "The Turbo iDDR is the first of many applications of Iomega REV technology within the Grass Valley product line. The IT-based REV drives and disk media are ideal for digitally-based workflows and applications and enable our customers to ride much better price/performance curves than current tape-alternative approaches. We look forward to working with Iomega in developing REV technologies for an even broader set of applications."

REV Media: Ideally Suited for Demands of Broadcast and ProAV Professionals

Iomega’s REV technology platform uniquely combines the best advantages of videotape media and hard disk drives and is ideally suited for the professional video and audio industry. The combination of Grass Valley products and the open, standards-based REV products will accelerate the shift from the serial, proprietary approaches of tape-based solutions and restrictive solid-state or optical disk solutions to open, networked, cost-effective, and high-performance digital workflows.

REV drives and disks are standards-based, high-capacity, inexpensive, durable and provide true nonlinear random access. With data rates up to 200 megabits per second, REV products support faster-than-real-time import and export directly from HD media and allow high-speed data transfers over common network connections. The REV drive and removable disk media are also robust, extremely durable and have long-term archival capability estimated at 30 years.

About the Grass Valley Turbo™ iDDR

Designed specifically for event, corporate, institutional, and worship production, the Grass Valley™ brand Turbo™ iDDR leverages the digital storage, networking, and clip-creation capabilities of the Emmy® award-winning Grass Valley Profile® line of video servers. Grass Valley has won multiple awards for its server line, as well as video tape recorder (VTR) replacement technologies, including two recent market leadership awards from the U.S.-based industry analyst firm Frost & Sullivan.

Starting at an unprecedented $10,995 USD (7,995€), and smaller than a typical broadcast tape deck at 3 RU high, the Turbo iDDR can hold 10 to 40 hours of storage, perform the work of up to three VTRs, and can capture and deliver complex content in multiple formats—including compressed high-definition (HD) video. The Grass Valley Turbo™ iDDR is expected to be available at the end of June 2005 through a network of Grass Valley resellers, consultants, and systems integrators.

About the REV Drive

The 35GB* REV disk is smaller than a deck of playing cards (10 x 77 x 75 mm) and delivers exceptional read-write performance of up to 25 MB/sec. (maximum native transfer rate) with much greater durability than tape—an estimated one million rewrites.

As an alternative to portable or external hard drives, the REV drive is well suited to vertical applications such as professional audio/video, video surveillance and digital content creation. Users can expand their storage capacity in affordable 35GB increments (on PCs, up to 90GB of compressed capacity with included software), archive data to inexpensive REV disks, and carry even the largest of data files with ease. Service providers can use REV disks as project disks with confidence, knowing that the REV disk is much more rugged than a portable hard drive.

The REV Drive’s Revolutionary Reliability

By design, the sensitive read/write heads and electronics of the REV system are located in the REV drive itself – not in the small portable disk. The disk holds a hard drive platter and a quiet fluid-dynamic bearing motor, eliminating the spindle hole as a source of dust contamination. Air filtration, together with shutters that seal off both drive and disk from outside air when the disk is inserted and ejected, contribute to a virtual "clean room" environment inside the removable REV disk.

These features, combined with advanced two-stage error correction and automatic head cleaning, give REV storage products exceptional data integrity. REV disks are also engineered for a long shelf life. REV drives and disks are covered by numerous issued and pending patents of Iomega Corporation, in the U.S. and other countries.

"Iomega’s REV products have transformed data protection in small businesses by freeing people from the complexity, cost and inefficiency of tape backup," said Heid. "We think REV products can be just as important in other tape-based vertical markets like professional audio/video where the REV drive’s ability to manage multiple video streams, retrieve needed clips instantly through random access, and support up to a million rewrites per REV disk makes the REV technology the natural next step in reliable professional storage."

About Thomson – Partner to the Media & Entertainment Industries

Thomson (Euronext Paris: 18453; NYSE: TMS) provides services, equipment and technology to help its Media & Entertainment clients – content creators, content distributors and users of its technology – realize their business goals and optimize their performance in a rapidly changing technology environment. The Group intends to become the preferred partner to the Media & Entertainment Industries through its Technicolor, Grass Valley, RCA and Thomson brands. For more information: www.thomson.net.

Thomson’s Systems and Equipment division develops video and film technologies, products and services sold to all major Hollywood studios, all major television, satellite, and cable broadcasters under the Grass Valley brand-name for the delivery of analog and digital entertainment. The division also includes Thomson’s Broadband Access Products Business, which develops technologies and products for broadband and telecommunication networks to deliver digital entertainment and data to consumers and businesses. For more information about Grass Valley products from Thomson please visit www.thomsongrassvalley.com.

About Iomega

Iomega Corporation provides easy-to-use, high value storage solutions to help people protect, secure, capture and share their valuable digital information. Iomega's award-winning storage products include the Iomega® REV™ 35GB drive in several different computer interface models; Zip® 100MB, 250MB and 750MB drives; high-performance Iomega external hard drives; Iomega Mini USB drives and Micro Mini™ USB drives; Iomega external CD-RW drives; Iomega Super DVD drives and the Super DVD QuikTouch™ Video Burner; and Iomega floppy USB-powered drives. Iomega simplifies data protection and sharing at home and in the workplace with Iomega Automatic Backup software, Iomega Sync software, HotBurn® CD-recording software, and Active Disk™ technology. For networks, Iomega NAS servers offer capacities of 160GB to 1.6TB. For unlimited capacity and anytime, anywhere access, Iomega offers iStorage™ secure online storage. Iomega also offers businesses and consumers a comprehensive data recovery services solution for recovering lost data due to hardware failure, file corruption or media damage. The Company can be reached at 1-888-4-IOMEGA (888-446-6342), or on the Web at www.iomega.com.

Copyright© 2005 Iomega Corporation. All rights reserved. Iomega, Zip, REV, Active Disk, Micro Mini, iStorage, HotBurn and QuikTouch are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Iomega Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Microsoft and Windows are trademarks or registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks, trade names, service marks, and logos referenced herein belong to their respective companies.

For more information, please contact:

Sundeep Mehta

e,Lexicon PR & Corporate Consultants Ltd.

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