From: price@mrktng.enet.dec.com ("Dave Price, UNIX Press Relations  27-Aug-1992 1038")
Newsgroups: biz.dec
Subject: DECnews/Agreement with Storage Technology
Date: 27 Aug 92 14:46:38 GMT
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||||||||||||  DEC n e w s  ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
                                              Digital Equipment Corporation
                                          Maynard, Massachusetts 01754-2571
Editorial contact:

     	   Gloria Bates
     	   Mass Storage Group
     	   Digital Equipment Corporation
     	   (508) 841-6544
    
     	   David Reid
     	   Storage Technology Corporation
     	   (303) 673-4815
    
    


        DIGITAL EQUIPMENT CORPORATION AND STORAGE TECHNOLOGY
            CORPORATION ANNOUNCE JOINT VENTURE AGREEMENT


             New Company Formed to Produce Inductive and
                     Magnetoresistive Disk Heads

    
LOUISVILLE, Colo. -- August 27, 1992 -- Digital Equipment Corporation 
and Storage Technology Corporation (StorageTek) today announced the 
signing of an agreement that establishes a new company intended to 
produce and sell inductive and magnetoresistive thin film heads for 
disk drives. The new company, Rocky Mountain Magnetics, Inc., will be 
a joint venture in which Digital will hold the controlling interest 
of 81 percent while StorageTek will hold a 19 percent share. The 
company will be run with its own profit and loss responsibility. 
Approximately 250 former StorageTek employees will join Rocky 
Mountain Magnetics, which will be based in Louisville, Colorado. 
     "This agreement with StorageTek provides Digital with additional 
core technology and manufacturing support that is immediately 
applicable to our continuing rapid growth in both the thin film head 
and disk drive businesses," said Charles F. Christ, vice president of 
Digital's SME (Small and Medium Enterprise)/Departmental Systems and 
Software. 
     According to Christ, the formation of Rocky Mountain Magnetics 
enables Digital to expand the capabilities of its successful 
Shrewsbury, Massachusetts-based thin-film heads business and to meet 
the high-volume requirements of its OEM (original equipment 
manufacturer) and end-user disk business. "With the development and 
manufacturing capabilities of both Rocky Mountain Magnetics and 
Digital's Shrewsbury operation, we will provide leading-edge 
thin-film heads and disk drives for our customers today and into the 
future," Christ said.
     Tom Gooch, StorageTek executive vice president of operations 
said, "StorageTek is pleased to have this opportunity to see its 
magnetoresistive technology brought to market.  We believe that 
partnering with Digital will optimize this process for ourselves and 
our disk drive suppliers." Gooch continued, "In our view, 
magnetoresistive technology is crucial to the future of the high-
performance disk drive industry. The timely availability of 
competitive, high-performance disk drives is, in turn, crucial to 
StorageTek's future product strategies."  
     Initially, Rocky Mountain Magnetics will manufacture and sell 
inductive thin-film heads for OEMs and for Digital's OEM and end-user 
disk drives. The company will also continue development of 
magnetoresistive head technology, with availability of samples to 
customers scheduled for October of this year.    
     Magnetoresistive technology is emerging in leading-edge disk 
products, and is widely considered to be a key factor that will allow 
magnetic storage to remain the dominant data storage medium in the 
computer industry in this decade. The technology offers performance, 
capacity and size advantages in both heads and disk drives. 
Magnetoresistive technology has been used in tape heads for several 
years.

General Manager Announced

     Today Digital Equipment Corporation and Storage Technology 
Corporation also announced the appointment of Frank B. Shelledy as 
general manager of Rocky Mountain Magnetics. Former director of tape 
head operations and disk head development for StorageTek, Shelledy 
served in various management and senior engineering positions with 
IBM Corporation for twenty years before joining StorageTek.   
     Storage Technology Corporation designs, manufactures, markets 
and services worldwide information storage and retrieval subsystems 
for high-performance and midrange computer systems, and enterprise 
computer networks.
     Digital Equipment Corporation, headquartered in Maynard, 
Massachusetts, is the leading worldwide supplier of networked 
computer systems, software, and services.  Digital pioneered and 
leads the industry in interactive, distributed and multivendor 
computing. Digital and its partners deliver the power to use the 
best integrated solutions - from desktop to data center - in open 
information environments. 
                                 ####


Note to Editors:  The Digital logo is a trademark of Digital 
                  Equipment Corporation. 

     		  StorageTek is a trademark of Storage Technology 
                  Corporation.
    
CORP/93/719

============================================================================
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