Sony to Acquire Optical Archive

Sony Corporation of America (SCA) has acquired Optical Archive Inc. (OAI), a company that specializes in optical storage systems for the data center market.

The acquisition is made by SCA on behalf of Sony Corporation.

With Sony, OAI will leverage its experience and capabilities in data center hardware design, supply chain operations and systems integration with Sony’s expertise in optical disc and manufacturing technology to develop new optical disc library systems that will meet the technological demands from the growing cold archive market.

The term ‘cold archive’ refers to a class of data that must be retained over a long period of time but isn’t accessed frequently, such as cloud-based photo storage and data retained for legal or regulatory reasons. Cold archive is the largest and fastest growing portion of the data center storage market.

“This acquisition marks the beginning of our commitment to this growing market,” said Terushi Shimizu, SVP and deputy president, device solutions business group, Sony. “Optical disc libraries will provide many advantages to customers who are currently using tape or HDD technology to store cold data, such as lower costs, extremely durable media life, and higher data throughput rates. We plan to leverage and expand our existing optical disc production lines in order to accommodate the growing demand for this media.”

“We are thrilled to be part of Sony,” said Frank Frankovsky, CEO, OAI. “Merging Sony’s excellence in optical engineering and manufacturing with OAI’s experience and capabilities in data center hardware design and operations will deliver innovative new storage solutions to customers.“

Read also:
Optical Archive Inc. Recent Patent Application Published
May 07, 2015, the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) has publish a patent application filed by Optical Archive, Inc., 600 Hansen Way, Palo Alto, CA (WO/2015/066216) developed by Gallo, Nikolai, for an “array reader and array reading of optical media”.
The abstract of the patent application published by the WIPO states: ”Various devices and systems may benefit from enhanced reading of optical media. For example, certain computer systems may benefit from array reading of optical media. An apparatus may include, for example, an array of optical sensors. The array of optical sensors may be configured to read a plurality of parallel linear strips of data from an optical medium.“