Former type Public Defunct November 2006 Founded 1985 Ceased operations November 2006 | Predecessor Ecrix Headquarters Boulder Successor Tandberg Data | |
Traded as NASDAQ: EXBT (1989-2006) Fate Acquired by Tandberg Data Products tape storage, automation solutions, VXA | ||
Exabyte Corp. was a manufacturer of magnetic tape data storage products headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, United States. Exabyte Corp. is now defunct, but the company's technology is sold by Tandberg Data under both brand names. Prior to the 2006 demise, Exabyte offered tape storage and automation solutions for servers, workstations, LANs and SANs. Exabyte is best known for introducing the Data8 (8mm) magnetic tape format in 1987. At the time of its demise, Exabyte manufactured VXA and LTO based products. The company controlled VXA technology but did not play a large role in the LTO community.
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Corporate history
The company was formed in 1985 by Juan Rodriguez, Harry Hinz, and Kelly Beavers, and a group of ex-StorageTek engineers who were interested in using consumer videotape technology for data storage. The company advanced technology for computer backups in 1987 when they introduced the Data8 magnetic tape format. The company's follow-up technologies, including Mammoth and Mammoth-2, were less successful.
Exabyte went public on the NASDAQ in 1989 under the symbol EXBT.
Acquisitions
Exabyte's history of acquisitions includes:
Ecrix merger
Ecrix was a magnetic tape data storage company founded in 1996 in Boulder, Colorado. The founders, Kelly Beavers and Juan Rodriguez, were two of the three founders of Exabyte. The research and development done by Ecrix focused on making a cheaper 8mm tape drive. In 1999, Ecrix released their first product, the VXA tape drive. In 2001, Ecrix and Exabyte merged, giving Exabyte access to Ecrix's VXA Packet Technology tape drive format.