Plasmon's UDO: We're baaaaaaaaaack! 4 August, 2009 By Steve Wexler

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"ASTI worked very closely with Plasmon over the past ten years as a sales and service provider of optical technology for archival applications," said ASTI president and CEO Chris Carr. "When Plasmon ran into financial difficulty late last year, we were motivated to buy the intellectual property and assets, and re-engage with professionals who feel our passion for the technology."

He said there are over 17,000 installations of UDO technology that are committed to these long-term storage solutions. "UDO media enables archival data retention for 50-plus years on a secure, reliable and permanent archive. If ASTI did not acquire the Plasmon UDO technology, customers would have been forced to go to less reliable, more expensive and less environmentally-friendly alternatives. Today we are announcing key milestones in re-establishing the business and technical operations under the Alliance Storage Technologies banner and re-engagement with the channel partner, technical services, and ISV communities where UDO has been and will continue to be an integral part of their business and value proposition to customers."

Carr said the company has been busy the last seven months acquiring Plasmon's intellectual property, key staff, vendor relationships and facilities and is now ready to go on the offensive. "We have everything that Plasmon had", and have contracted with Plasmon's R&D team for future products.

The market focus for Plasmon UDO is archival storage, which is taking on increasing significance, said Bill Gallagher, director strategic accounts. "What drives this industry is compliance -- SOX, HIPPA, etc. It's not about restoration, it's about permanent storage and retrieval." Large organizations in financial services, healthcare, government and transportation rely on Plasmon UDO solutions that feature fast access -- a maximum of 7 seconds -- high security and low cost of ownership, he added.

Almost 18,000 libraries have been shipped over the last 10 years, including 3,200 in North America. ASTI has a global service network and partner program, ASP (Authorized Service Provider), which includes the technical support call center and onsite services. Bryan Engstrom, director worldwide sales, says they are re-engaging with more than 100 distributors, VARs and SIs as well as reaching out to former, current and prospective customers. ASTI has over 50 authorized resellers signed up, mainly in North America, he said.

Carr is confident that ASTI will succeed where Plasmon failed because of a number of differences between the two. "The problem wasn't the Plasmon product." When they got involved in January, they uncovered a number of issues, especially pricing and selling below costs. He said Plasmon had been $20 million a year for the last three years. ASTI started cutting expenses, buying media out of Asia instead of the U.K. Today, it is making a profit, he said. It appears that Plasmon customers have remained loyal. Gallagher said prices have remained the same and have only lost one deal to a competitor. "People are very comfortable on price."

Compared to disk's typical three-year lifespan, UDO customers tend to have 3 or 4x lifespans. "In some cases we have boxes 24 years old& and the media lifespan is rated at 50-plus years. "We think we're very compelling and very attractive from a pricing perspective."

For further information, visit www.alliancestoragetechnologies.com, call 719-593-7900 or email info@astiusa.com.