This year, Verbatim celebrates 40 years of enhancing the digital lifestyle of consumers, businesses and professionals with data storage innovation.
Since its founding in 1969, the company has been at the forefront in the development of data storage technology – from floppy disks and magneto-optical storage media to the CD and DVD formats and the latest high-definition Blu-ray Disc (BD) media.
In the early years, the company joined industry leaders such as IBM in rolling out the 8-inch floppy diskette, Shugart in announcing the 5.25-inch floppy diskette and Sony in introducing the 3.5” micro diskette (1MB). Focused on increasing its share of the rapidly growing floppy disk market, Verbatim continued to pioneer advancements such as the launch of its high-density 1.6MB mini diskette, its 2MB micro diskette and the DatalifePlus® (Teflon-protected) diskette and soon became the world's largest producer of floppy disks.
While Verbatim had achieved market leadership with floppy disks, it continued to expand its product range, adding 5.25” magneto-optical (MO) media in 1990 and 3.5” MO media in 1991. As the need for higher capacities and higher performance storage solutions grew, Verbatim also took a leadership role in the development, manufacture and advancement of CD and DVD media.
In 2002, Randy Queen, a 20-year veteran with Verbatim, was promoted from vice president of operations to president. Since then, he has guided the growth and expansion of the company beyond optical storage to encompass three additional operating units – hard disk, flash memory and accessory products.
A year after Queen’s appointment, Verbatim launched its award-winning line of Store ‘n’ Go USB flash drives. Currently, Verbatim offers a broad range of USB drives that meet the needs of consumers, professionals and corporations with capacities ranging from 1GB to 32GB.
In addition to the standard applications such as USB drives, digital still cameras, digital camcorders and portable devices, flash storage is now penetrating the computer industry with SSD drives like Verbatim’s recently launched ExpressCard SSD. With capacities of 16, 32 and 64GB, the new solid-state drive (SSD) provides PC and Mac users with plug-in storage that is up to five times faster than USB-based ExpressCards.
