DataPlay last week officially named Imation as the company’s first partner in bringing DataPlay’s new removable media format to market.
Imation, which makes a variety of removable storage media, will produce blank and pre-recorded 500MB DataPlay discs in time for the product’s release late this fall. DataPlay CEO Steve Volk said he was interested, not only in Imation’s manufacturing capability, but its worldwide distribution capacity. Imation will produce the discs at its Wahpeton, N.D., facility.
Imation became a major investor in DataPlay during that company’s latest round of financing, which put $55 million into DataPlay’s coffers. At that time Kodak, Trans World Entertainment, Intel and Olympus joined Toshiba, S3 and Samsung as investors in DataPlay. Volk intends to announce several additional strategic partners in July that will make DataPlay-based hardware devices and recorded media. DataPlay CFO Rich Mohr could not say which parties would make the final cut, but said those that invested in DataPlay would have a leg up on the competition.
