AVANTIS PARTNERS WITH LEADING PAN-EUROPEAN DISTRIBUTOR

Added: (Tue Mar 19 2002)

Pressbox (Press Release) - Leading storage and networking distributor EET extends force of Avantis’ patented NAS CD/DVD Server technology in Europe

March 2002 - Avantis, a leading British vendor of network attached multimedia storage products, has just announced the appointment of a new European distributor, EET, one of the largest distributors of storage and networking solutions in Europe with offices in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Holland, France, Italy and Spain. This strategic partnership reflects Avantis’ continued European expansion plans as it moves to capitalise upon the burgeoning European Storage Market, and follows shortly after the company’s appointment of new European Business Manager, Jim Selby.

Avantis currently has a 9% share of the European CD/DVD storage market and recently won the largest contract for CD Servers in Europe, an OEM deal with Learning Technology plc, the parent company of Viglen Limited (‘Viglen’), to supply 600 CD/DVD Servers to primary schools across Northern Ireland.

EET’s existing portfolio includes peripheral products such as Memory, Storage, Back-up, Networking and Multimedia products. Under the terms of the initial agreement with Avantis, EET will offer the OpenCD range of CD/DVD Servers to its resellers throughout the regions of Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland.

Michael Kragh, Product Manager, EET Denmark, comments “We partnered with Avantis because of the demonstrable success of their OpenCD solution throughout the UK. I believe there will be a significant demand for this high performance CD networking solution from our resellers throughout Europe.”

Comments Jim Selby, European Business Manager, Avantis “ With a market leading product portfolio, our partnership with EET will now enable us to extend the reach of our OpenCD solution throughout key European markets. This forms a key component of our strategic expansion plan and we look forward to working with EET to achieve this aim.”

According to recent analysis by Dataquest it has been predicted that by 2004 the European Market for Networked Attached Storage (NAS) will be $3.4 billion, representing an 81% compound growth in units and a 73% compound growth in spend.

The Avantis OpenCD networking solution enables entire networks of users to access CDs and DVDs simultaneously, within minutes of installation of the server. Based on fast hard disk technology, OpenCD can handle over 1,000 concurrent users and supports up to 50 simultaneous video streams. OpenCD’s Multimedia Virtual Drive (MVD™) Technology provides 100% compatibility across all CD and DVD formats, ensuring users can access even the most sophisticated multimedia software packages. OpenCD is built on embedded NT and integrates seamlessly with user databases on a Windows NT domain.

The OpenCD solution is available in Workgroup, Campus, and Enterprise configurations, with the largest capacity model storing up to 1,000 CD-ROMs. Prices for the OpenCD solution start from EUR 2,395 RRP (OpenCD.Workgroup 15, 10 GB Capacity HDD)

A live demonstration of OpenCD is available at: http://www.avantisworld.com/opencddemo/ This enables direct access to the web administration menu for OpenCD. Features include CD/DVD image management tools, user and group security set-up and CD usage statistics. There is also a comprehensive online help menu.

About Avantis
Established in 1995, Avantis is a rapidly growing ICT (information and communication technology) company dedicated to the development of CD and DVD networking solutions. Avantis pioneered the use of hard disk technology to store and distribute multimedia content in 1996 and was the first vendor to launch a hard disk based, network attached storage (NAS) CD/DVD server into the global market.

From headquarters near Cardiff, South Wales, Avantis operates through a network of exclusive distributors in the UK, Europe and the U.S. Today, Avantis is estimated to have 30% share of the UK CD/DVD Server market and 9% of the European market.

Avantis has recently announced its largest ever OEM deal to supply 600 CD/DVD Servers to primary schools across Northern Ireland. Avantis server technology will provide the curriculum content delivery solution in each school and is an essential component of the Northern Ireland Classroom 2000 contract, worth over £16 million in total.

For more information about Avantis, please refer to the Avantis web site at http://www.avantisworld.com


About EET
EET is a group of companies focusing on supplying dealers, resellers, ISPs and Telcos with peripheral products such as Memory, Storage, Back-up, Networking and Multimedia Products.

EET was founded in 1986 and is today one of Europe’s largest distributors of IT Peripherals. EET has offices in eight European countries including Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Holland, France, Italy and Spain

The group employs 172 people in total.

For further information about EET, please refer to the EET Nordic web site at
http://www.eetnordic.com/


Contacts:
Michael Kragh
Product Manager
EET A/S
mik@eet.dk
+45 45 82 19 19

Lorna Mitchell
Marketing Director
Avantis Ltd
lorna.mitchell@avantisworld
+ 44 (0) 870 873 4800

Stephanie Adams
Account Manager
Multimedia PRM
stephaniea@multimediapr.co.uk
+44 (0) 1291 626200