Imation appoints StorIT as distributor for Exabyte's revolutionary VXA product range aimed at increasing market share in growing SMB segment in Middle East and English-speaking East Africa; agreement launches Exabyte's VXA product portfolio in the region
Dubai, U.A.E - Imation, a worldwide leader in removable data storage media, and Exabyte, a leading innovator in tape backup, restore, and archival systems, announced they are expanding their existing relationship to establish Imation as the only authorised reseller of Exabyte's VXA and Magnum (LTO Ultrium) drives, libraries and media throughout the Middle East. This expands on the agreements throughout the EMEA region and the next step in Exabyte and Imation's strengthening relationship.
The product offering through Imation will include the full portfolio of award-winning VXA products, including stand-alone VXA-2 Packet Drives and VXA PacketLoaders as well as Exabyte's robust line of Magnum LTO libraries.
"This announcement marks another step in our growing relationship and is another example of Imation's commitment to deliver the broadest portfolio of removable data storage media products to our customers in Europe and the Middle East," said June Carmichael, Business Development Manager for Exabyte Brand EMEA, Imation. "We see strong growth potential in the rapidly upgrading enterprise networks in the Middle East. With Imation's more than 50 years of experience in removable data storage, strong distribution channels, and deep customer knowledge, we are well positioned to service the customer needs for greater data storage solutions within the region with Exabyte's highly reliable portfolio of innovative products."
Exabyte's VXA products have gained widespread acclaim in product reviews and have been adopted by major OEMs, including IBM, Apple and Fujitsu. The VXA technology ensures maximum benefits across all back up technologies at the SMB level.
"This relationship leverages Imation's sales capabilities and global customer reach to enhance the sales and promotion of Exabyte's drives, libraries and media products in the Middle East, where Imation has a long-established presence and customer base. We are thrilled to expand our relationship with Imation by working together to serve the dynamic and growing market in this region," said Brian Stanley, managing director EMEA, Exabyte. "This agreement expands on Exabyte's existing distribution channels to provide more coverage in the region."
Inline with the agreement, Imation Middle East has appointed StorIT distribution, a storage specialist value added distributor, as its official Middle East distributor for Exabyte's VXA drives and libraries. The agreement between Imation and StorIT aims to increase market share for Exabyte's product portfolio in the SMB market in the region.
Riyaz Abdulla, Imation's Sales and Marketing Manager for Middle East and English-speaking East Africa (MEEA), said, "We are sure that working with a storage specialist like StorIT will add value to our distribution network with their dedication and focus in the SMB market segment. This (agreement) marks another step in our commitment to deliver the broadest portfolio of data storage products and entry level storage solutions to our customers."
StorIT will be distributing the complete portfolio of Exabyte's award-winning VXA products, including stand-alone VXA-2 Packet Drives and VXA PacketLoaders. VXA products are up to 180x more likely to restore data than other competitors, even from a damaged tape.
"StorIT will leverage its wide-spread, knowledge-based reseller channel in offering VXA solutions to SMBs in the Middle East who could benefit from data backup and recovery automation features at the price point of a single tape drive solution," said Suren Vedantham, Managing Director, StorIT Distribution. "This is a great value proposition for small business entities with limited IT budgets, who will find superior performance, scalability and data integrity options which are not found in the existing competitive technology format. With this new partnership, we continue in our endeavour to bring cutting edge storage technology solutions to customers in the region."
Exabyte's award-winning Packet Technology enables VXA Packet drives, autoloaders and tapes to read and write data in packets just like the Internet, providing far superior restore integrity, exceptional transfer speeds and scalable tape capacities. The agreement between Imation and StorIt will help introduce a new standard for the SMB/Departmental tape backup.
In November of 2003, Imation and Exabyte entered into an agreement that established Imation as the exclusive worldwide distributor of Exabyte brand media products. Imation is the only vendor authorised to resell and distribute Exabyte's VXA and Magnum Hardware Portfolio in Europe and the Middle East.
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About Imation:
Imation Corp. is a leading developer, manufacturer and supplier of magnetic and optical removable data storage media. With one of the broadest product lines in the industry - spanning from a few megabytes to hundreds of gigabytes of capacity in each piece of media, Imation serves customers in more than 60 countries, in both business and consumer markets. From large data centres to distributed networks, Imation's tape cartridges are used in data processing, security, business continuity, backup and archiving applications. Customer needs for reliability, convenience and portability to store and manage business data, photos, video, images and music on professional and home desktops and increasingly in consumer electronics devices drive demand for Imation's optical and diskette products. With more than 300 technology scientists and nearly 300 patents in the US alone, Imation continues to pioneer today's proven magnetic and optical media technologies. As of March 31st 2004, Imation employed approximately 2,800 people worldwide. Revenues from outside the U.S. contribute approximately 60 percent of total sales. . Imation Corp. is located in Oakdale, Minnesota, USA, the European Headquarters is based in Schiphol, near Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Imation Middle East is based in Jebel Ali, UAE.
About StorIT Distribution
StorIT is Middle East's first & foremost Storage Specialist Value Added Distributor. Established in year 2002, it has its headquarters based in Jebel Ali Free Zone, Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Extremely client centric and on par with emerging technology trends, StorIT provides full spectrum state-of-the-art Enterprise Data Storage technology products, solutions and consulting services to market segments ranging from SMB to Large Enterprises, through its extensive network of Reseller Channel spanning across the Middle East & North Africa. StorIT is the authorized Middle East-wide Value Added Distributor of world's leading storage brands viz., EMC, Storagetek, Overland Storage, Qlogic, etc.
For more informatoin please contact:
Cyrus Roche
Market Buzz International (MBI)
P.O. Box 75121
Dubai Media City
Tel: 971 4 3625480
Tel: 971 4 3625483
Fax: 971 4 3625394
Mob: 971 50 6568670
E-mail: cyrus@themarketbuzz.net
Website: www.themarketbuzz.net
Press Release 2005
