Apparently some new boys in the neighborhood muscling in on ADIC turf:
siliconinvestor.ipo.com
IPO-QBAK
Anyone have thoughts on this? It may be just one more factor that has held down ADIC--Puna
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Data storage hardware
QUALSTAR CORPORATION
6709 INDEPENDENCE AVENUE
CANOGA PARK
Company Vitals
1999 Revenue: $29,698,000
1999 Net Income (Loss): $3,986,000
Fiscal Year End: 06/30
Employees: 81
Incorporated In: CALIFORNIA
Industry:
SIC Code:
3577 - Computer peripheral equipment
Offering Status
Current IPO Status: Filed
Filing Date: 2/2/00
Exp. Pricing Date: *TBA*
Proposed Symbol: QBAK
Exchange: NASDAQ
Form Filed: S-1
Share Type: Common Stock
Est. Offering Amount: $20,000,000
Expected Price: $7.00 to $9.00
Est. Offering Expenses: *TBA*
Total Shares: 2,500,000
Lead Underwriter:
First Security Van Kasper
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Business Description
We design, develop, manufacture and sell high quality automated magnetic tape libraries used to store, retrieve and manage electronic data primarily in network computing environments. Tape libraries consist of high-performance cartridge tape drives, storage arrays of tape cartridges and robotics to move the tape cartridges from their storage locations to the tape drives under software control. Our tape libraries provide high-performance, reliable and cost-effective storage solutions for organizations requiring backup, recovery and archival storage of critical electronic information. Our tape libraries are compatible with commonly used network operating systems, including UNIX, Windows NT, NetWare and Linux, and a wide range of storage management software. We offer tape libraries for multiple tape drive technologies, including those using Advanced Intelligent Tape, or AIT, Digital Linear Tape, or DLT, and quarter inch cartridge, or QIC, tape media. We recently announced tape libraries for the Linear Tape Open, or LTO, Ultrium tape drives and media. The amount of electronic data and information has been growing due to the emergence of new applications such as image processing, e-commerce, Internet information and email, video and motion picture image storage and other multimedia applications. Storing, managing and protecting this data is increasingly important to the success and operations of many organizations. Consequently, the data storage industry is growing rapidly. Tape libraries are a critical part of a data storage solution and are substantially less expensive per-megabyte than any other data storage method. The growth in data and the need for complex storage solutions have spurred the evolution of new storage and data management technologies.
Use Proceeds
We intend to use the net proceeds from this offering for working capital and other general corporate purposes.
Competitors
The market for automated tape libraries is intensely competitive, highly fragmented and characterized by rapidly changing technology and evolving standards. Because we offer a broad range of libraries for different tape drive technologies, we tend to have a large number of competitors that differ depending on the particular format and performance level. In addition, because of growth in our marketplace, we anticipate increased competition from other sources, ranging from emerging to established companies, including large OEMs, to foreign competition. Our competitors include Advanced Digital Information Corporation, or ADIC, Spectra Logic, Breece Hill Technologies, Overland Data, Quantum/ATL, which is also a supplier to us of DLT tape drives, Exabyte and Storage Technology Corp. Our primary competitors are Exabyte, Spectra Logic and ADIC in the 8mm tape recording media, Overland Data, ADIC, Breece Hill Technologies and Quantum/ATL in the DLT tape recording media and Overland Data in the QIC recording media, and we anticipate that most of our competitors will offer products for the LTO tape recording media. Many of our competitors have substantially greater financial and other resources, better name recognition, larger research and development staffs, and more experience and capabilities in manufacturing, marketing and distributing products than we do. Our competitors may develop new technologies and products that are more effective than our products. We are not ISO-9000 certified, unlike some of our competitors, which may limit some customers' ability to purchase our products. However, we do not believe that our current determination not to seek ISO-9000 certification has affected our sales to date.>> |
