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UNITED STATES
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
WASHINGTON, DC 20549
FORM 8-K
CURRENT REPORT
PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934
Date of Report (Date of earliest event reported): April 1, 1998
OVERLAND DATA, INC.
(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)
CALIFORNIA
(State or other jurisdiction of incorporation)
0-22071 95-3535285
(Commission File Number) (IRS Employer Identification No.)
8975 Balboa Avenue, San Diego, California 92123-1599
(Address of principal executive offices, including zip code)
(619) 571-5555
(Registrant's telephone number, including area code)
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ITEM 5. OTHER EVENTS.
Overland Data, Inc. (the "Company") incorporates by reference herein the press
release, dated April 1, 1998, with respect to the Company's announcement of its
cross-license agreement with Tandberg Data ASA for SLR/MLR Technology and VR2
Technology.
ITEM 7. FINANCIAL STATEMENTS AND EXHIBITS.
(c) Exhibits.
(i) Exhibit 99 -- Press Release dated April 1, 1998
SIGNATURES
Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934,
the registrant has duly caused this report to be signed on its behalf by the
undersigned hereunto duly authorized.
OVERLAND DATA, INC.
Date: April 9, 1998 By: /s/ Vernon A. LoForti
----------------------------
Vernon A. LoForti
Vice President and
Chief Financial Officer
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EXHIBIT 99
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
TANDBERG DATA & OVERLAND DATA COMPLETE CROSS
LICENSING DEAL FOR SLR/MLR TECHNOLOGY AND VR2
April 1, 1998 -- OSLO, Norway .Tandberg Data ASA (Oslo Stock Exchange: TAD),
and SAN DIEGO, California Overland Data, Inc. (Nasdaq NMS: OVRL), technology
leaders in data storage and backup products, have today announced that they
have entered into a technology cross licensing agreement. The agreement will
allow Tandberg Data to integrate Overland's Variable Rate Randomizer
(VR2-TM-) advanced data encoding technology into its Single-Channel Linear
Recording (SLR*) and Multi-Channel Linear Recording (MLR*) families of tape
drives while Overland gains second-source manufacturing rights to the SLR and
MLR drives and will also develop a line of automation products for the SLR
and MLR technology.
Tandberg Data is the first company to license Overland's VR2 technology
and Overland becomes the first licensee of Tandberg Data's SLR and MLR drive
technology.
As the first licensee of VR2, Tandberg Data's SLR and MLR will be the
first products in the market to utilize VR2 technology. Tandberg has enhanced
the competitive positioning of its SLR and MLR products by adopting what
Computer Technology Review referred to as, "without a doubt one of the most
significant developments in tape technology in recent years." Overland's VR2
encoding technology significantly increases the native capacity and native
data transfer rate performance of existing tape technologies.
Scott McClendon, President and CEO of Overland, commented, "As we began
testing VR2 with Tandberg Data on the SLR and MLR drives and reviewing what
VR2 could do to further improve the SLR and MLR roadmap in terms of price and
performance, we became convinced that SLR and MLR would become one of the
dominant formats in the low-end and midrange server tape backup markets. This
conviction led us to move to become a second source manufacturer for the SLR
and MLR drives. Overland has a long and successful history in tape drive
manufacturing. Implementing VR2 on the SLR and MLR platforms and integrating
the drives into our manufacturing line continues to expand our role as more
than just an automation supplier. The license agreement with Tandberg Data is
Overland's first step toward the goal of making VR2 a standard for all linear
tape drive formats and in the process revitalize the multi-billion dollar
linear tape market."
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Tandberg Data's SLR and MLR drives are based on one of the industry's
most reliable tape drive platforms with a demonstrated field return rate of
less than 0.7 percent. The SLR family of linear drives provides user
capacities of from 250 megabytes to 8 gigabytes**, while the MLR line is
designed for higher-end applications demanding capacities in the 16 to 50
gigabytes** range and data throughput of more than 14 gigabytes** per hour.
All of those capacity and performance specifications will be significantly
increased with the addition of VR2.
Tandberg Data plans to have MLR drives available with VR2 by the first
Quarter of 1999.
Hans Christian Qvist, President and CEO of Tandberg Data ASA in Oslo,
Norway said, "The agreement with Overland is another major milestone on the
continued road to success for our SLR and MLR tape drive technology. The
agreement provides three important strategic benefits; strengthening of our
future SLR and MLR product roadmap and price-performance, new loader and
library offerings for SLR and MLR, and a well-experienced second source
manufacturing licensee supporting our technology. We have taken a significant
step in protecting future customer investments in SLR and MLR products and
are gaining technology that will give SLR and MLR a competitive boost against
other low-end and midrange tape technologies. With this agreement we have an
excellent second source manufacturer which our growing ranks of OEM customers
have demanded and we have gained a leading manufacturer of automation
products to significantly broaden the SLR and MLR loader and library product
offerings. The momentum that our SLR and MLR formats are gaining with the
recent selection by Compaq for its low-to-mid-range servers, as well as other
leading OEM suppliers for workstations and midrange servers, validates the
fact that they offer the best price-performance and reliability for network
environments".
Overland's VR2 encoding technology significantly increases the native
capacity and native data transfer rate performance of existing linear tape
technologies without requiring any changes in tape path design, recording
heads, and/or media. This is accomplished by achieving a rate efficiency of
greater than 99 percent, making it one of the most efficient Partial Response
Maximum Likelihood (PRML) implementations ever developed. The deal with
Tandberg Data builds on Overland's legacy of success in tape drive
manufacturing with 9-track and 3490 products, while expanding the customer
drive choices available in Overland's line of automated tape storage
products. Overland said it intends to produce SLR and MLR drives both for the
commercial market as well as for internal use, leveraging the Mainframe Class
Robotics and SmartScale Storage-TM-architecture of Overland's award-winning
DLT-based LibraryXpress-TM- to create a new generation of automated library
solutions utilizing SLR and MLR platforms.
The new price-performance standards for VR2-enabled SLR and MLR products
have also won praise from Tandberg Data's major OEM customers, such as Compaq
Computer Corporation, which integrates the SLR5 tape drives in the ProLiant*
and ProSignia* server products.
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"We're very pleased with the Overland-Tandberg Data cross licensing
agreement," said Alan Skidmore, Director of Engineering at the Enterprise
Storage and Option Division of Compaq. "Employing VR2 technology in the SLR
and MLR roadmap strengthens our low- to midrange tape offerings which meet
the price-performance needs of a growing set of customers. The agreement for
Overland to be a second source manufacturer for this platform assures us that
we will have the production capacity and competitiveness to meet customers
requirements. It's a real win-win for all of the participants."
Fara Yale, Director and Principal Analyst at Dataquest, said that by
adding VR2 technology to the SLR and MLR drives, Tandberg Data will be
effectively repositioning its product line. "If Tandberg Data can deliver on
the promises of VR2 technology, it will allow the company to move its future
tape drives further upscale, creating a new competitive picture for the
company," said Yale. "The SLR and MLR products will move up in performance
and capacity to compete in the low- to midrange server marketplace."
TANDBERG DATA
Tandberg Data ASA is a publicly held company based in Oslo, Norway and is
traded on the Norwegian stock exchange. Established in 1933, Tandberg Data is
now well known worldwide for its innovation in magnetic storage technology.
The company is the leading world-wide supplier of high speed, high capacity
SLR and MLR tape drive solutions and libraries for data storage management
network environments, archival storage and software distribution. Tandberg
Data supplies its products to the world's largest OEM's and through a
worldwide distribution and authorized Tandberg Data Reseller sales network.
With corporate offices and manufacturing facilities in Oslo, Tandberg Data
also has significant marketing, sales and support operations in the USA, UK,
France, Germany, Singapore, Japan and Norway.
For more information on Tandberg Data's wide range of tape data storage
management solutions visit them on the Web at http://www.tandberg.com or call
Tandberg Data at +47 22 18 90 90.
OVERLAND DATA
Overland is a global supplier of storage automation solutions and related
technologies designed to meet and surpass the critical requirements of
high-availability network computing environments, from entry level to the
enterprise. The Company is a recognized leader in technology innovation for
such achievements as the award-winning DLT LibraryXpress SmartScale Storage
architecture that establishes new standards for intelligent automated storage
and scalability, and the Variable Rate Randomizer (VR2) data encoding
technology that can significantly increase the capacity and throughput of
linear tape formats. Overland has also earned a worldwide reputation for
unmatched product quality and innovative warranty programs such as the
recently
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announced Guaranteed Up Time Service (GUTS-TM-) program that dramatically
reduce the total cost of ownership. The Company's award-winning products meet
the critical needs of end users, distributors and OEMs in industries
worldwide.
# # #
VR2 IS A TRADEMARK OF OVERLAND WORLDWIDE.
* (TANDBERG MLR, TANDBERG MLR1, TANDBERG MLR3 AND TANDBERG SLR ARE TRADEMARKS
OF TANDBERG DATA. OTHER TRADEMARKS ARE FOR THEIR RESPECTIVE COMPANIES).
** (ASSUMES 2:1 DATA COMPRESSION).
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EXCEPT FOR THE FACTUAL STATEMENTS MADE HEREIN, THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN
THIS PRESS RELEASE CONSISTS OF FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS THAT INVOLVE RISKS
AND UNCERTAINTIES. THE COMPANY'S ACTUAL RESULTS COULD DIFFER MATERIALLY FROM
THOSE CONTAINED IN SUCH STATEMENTS. FACTORS THAT COULD CAUSE OR CONTRIBUTE TO
SUCH DIFFERENCES INCLUDE THE TIMING AND MARKET ACCEPTANCE OF SLR AND MLR VR2
PRODUCTS, NEW PRODUCT INTRODUCTIONS BY COMPETITORS, RESCHEDULING OR
CANCELLATION OF CUSTOMER ORDERS, AND GENERAL COMPETITION AND PRICE PRESSURES
IN THE MARKET PLACE. REFERENCE IS ALSO MADE TO OTHER FACTORS SET FORTH IN THE
COMPANY'S FILINGS WITH THE SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION INCLUDING THE
"RISK FACTORS", "MANAGEMENT'S DISCUSSIONS AND ANALYSIS" AND OTHER SECTIONS OF
THE COMPANY'S FORM 10-K FOR THE MOST RECENTLY COMPLETED FISCAL YEAR.
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CONTACT INFORMATION:
TANDBERG DATA: (+47) 22 18 90 90
World Wide Web: http://www.tandberg.com
PRESS RELEASE INFORMATION: INVESTOR RELATIONS INFORMATION:
Hans Christian Qvist, President & CEO Jon Erik Bjorstad, Executive Board
Email: [email protected] Member (elect)
Erik Solhjell, VP Technology Email: [email protected]
Email: [email protected]
OVERLAND: (619) 571-5555
World Wide Web: http://www.overlanddata.com
PRODUCT INFORMATION: INVESTOR RELATIONS INFORMATION:
Steve Richardson, VP of Marketing Scott McClendon, President & CEO
Email:[email protected] Email: [email protected]
Vernon LoForti, CFO
Email: [email protected]
AGENCY: Judy Smith
JPR Communications
(818) 386-0403
Email: [email protected]
Home Page: http://www.jprcom.com
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