 | |
| Type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry | Data storage |
| Founded | 1992 |
| Defunct | 1995 |
| Fate | Restructured |
| Successor | IBM Storage Systems Division |
Key people | Ed Zschau, CEO |
| Parent | International Business Machines |
AdStar (an acronym for Advanced Storage and Retrieval) was a division of IBM that encompassed all the company's storage products including disk, tape and optical storage systems and storage software.
In 1992 IBM combined their Storage Products businesses comprising eleven sites in eight countries into this division. [1] On its creation, AdStar became the largest information storage business in the world. It had a revenue of $6.11 billion, of which $500 million were sales to other manufacturers (OEM sales), and generated a gross profit of about $440 million (before taxes and restructuring). [2]
To provide additional autonomy—thereby further encouraging OEM sales—IBM established AdStar as a wholly owned subsidiary in April 1993, with outsider Ed Zschau as Chairman and CEO. [2] To some observers this appeared to be an admission by IBM that the storage subsidiary no longer provided a strategic advantage by providing proprietary devices for its mainframe products, [2] and that it was being positioned to be sold off as a part of then the IBM chairman John Akers' business strategy. The replacement of Akers by Lou Gerstner in April 1993 changed the strategy from spinout to turnaround, [3] but the disk drive business under Zschau continued to be troubled, declining to $3 billion in 1995. [4]
Zschau left AdStar in October 1995, replaced by IBM insider Jim Vanderslice. [4] The AdStar division was dismembered thereafter; the AdStar Distributed Storage Manager (ADSM) was renamed Tivoli Storage Manager in 1999, [5] and the disk drive business component was sold off to Hitachi in 2003. [6]
IBM PC DOS, an acronym for IBM Personal Computer Disk Operating System, is a discontinued disk operating system for the IBM Personal Computer, its successors, and IBM PC compatibles. It was manufactured and sold by IBM from the early 1980s into the 2000s. Developed by Microsoft, it was also sold by that company as MS-DOS. Both operating systems were identical or almost identical until 1993, when IBM began selling PC DOS 6.1 with new features. The collective shorthand for PC DOS and MS-DOS was DOS, which is also the generic term for disk operating system, and is shared with dozens of disk operating systems called DOS.
Hitachi, Ltd. is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. It is the parent company of the Hitachi Group and had formed part of the Nissan zaibatsu and later DKB Group and Fuyo Group of companies before DKB and Fuji Bank merged into the Mizuho Financial Group. As of 2020, Hitachi conducts business ranging from IT, including AI, the Internet of Things, and big data, to infrastructure.
Shugart Associates was a computer peripheral manufacturer that dominated the floppy disk drive market in the late 1970s and is famous for introducing the 5+1⁄4-inch "Minifloppy" floppy disk drive. In 1979 it was one of the first companies to introduce a hard disk drive form factor compatible with a floppy disk drive, the SA1000 form factor compatible with the 8-inch floppy drive form factor.
Western Digital Corporation is an American computer drive manufacturer and data storage company, headquartered in San Jose, California. It designs, manufactures and sells data technology products, including data storage devices, data center systems and cloud storage services.
Seagate Technology Holdings plc is an American data storage company. It was incorporated in 1978 as Shugart Technology and commenced business in 1979. Since 2010, the company has been incorporated in Dublin, Ireland, with operational headquarters in Fremont, California, United States.
Louis Vincent Gerstner Jr. is an American businessman, best known for his tenure as chairman of the board and chief executive officer of IBM from April 1993 until 2002, when he retired as CEO in March and chairman in December. He is largely credited with turning IBM's fortunes around.
Samuel J. "Sam" Palmisano is a former president and the eighth chief executive officer of IBM until January 2012. He also served as Chairman of the company until October 1, 2012.
IBM manufactured magnetic disk storage devices from 1956 to 2003, when it sold its hard disk drive business to Hitachi. Both the hard disk drive (HDD) and floppy disk drive (FDD) were invented by IBM and as such IBM's employees were responsible for many of the innovations in these products and their technologies. The basic mechanical arrangement of hard disk drives has not changed since the IBM 1301. Disk drive performance and characteristics are measured by the same standards now as they were in the 1950s. Few products in history have enjoyed such spectacular declines in cost and physical size along with equally dramatic improvements in capacity and performance.
AST Research, Inc., later doing business as AST Computer, was a personal computer manufacturer. It was founded in 1980 in Irvine, California, by Albert Wong, Safi Qureshey, and Thomas Yuen, as an initialism of their first names. In the 1980s, AST designed add-on expansion cards, and evolved toward the 1990s into a major personal computer manufacturer. AST was acquired by Samsung Electronics in 1997 but was de facto closed in 1999 due to a series of losses.
The Microdrive is a type of miniature, 1-inch hard disks produced by IBM and Hitachi. These rotational media storage devices were designed to fit in CompactFlash (CF) Type II slots.
Memorex Corp. began as a computer tape producer and expanded to become both a consumer media supplier and a major IBM plug compatible peripheral supplier. It was broken up and ceased to exist after 1996 other than as a consumer electronics brand specializing in disk recordable media for CD and DVD drives, flash memory, computer accessories and other electronics.
Edwin Van Wyck "Ed" Zschau is an American educator who represented California's 12th District in the United States House of Representatives from 1983 to 1987. In 1986 he ran as the Republican candidate for a seat in the United States Senate. He prevailed in a crowded Republican primary that included, among others, conservative commentator Bruce Herschensohn, Los Angeles County supervisor Michael D. Antonovich and Congresswoman Bobbi Fiedler, but then lost to incumbent Democrat Alan Cranston by a narrow margin.
HGST, Inc. was a manufacturer of hard disk drives, solid-state drives, and external storage products and services.
Travelstar was a brand of 2.5-inch hard disk drive (HDD) that was introduced by IBM in 1994 with the announcement of the Travelstar LP. At 12.5 mm high with two platters, they were available in 360, 540 and 720 MB capacities. Initial models were industry-leading for small form factor HDDs in terms of areal density, data transfer rates and shock tolerance (500g).
Optiarc is a brand of optical disc drives and solid-state drives. It is owned by a US-based Vinpower Digital, Inc.
International Business Machines (IBM) is a multinational computer technology and information technology consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM originated from the unification of several companies that worked to automate routine business transactions, including the first companies to build punched card-based data tabulating machines and build time clocks. In 1911, these companies were amalgamated into the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (CTR).
sTec was an American computer data storage technology company headquartered in California. It had research and development, sales, support and manufacturing sites in China, India, Japan, Malaysia, Silicon Valley (USA), and Taiwan.
Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) was a provider of modular mid-range and high-end computer data storage systems, software and services. Its operations are now a part of Hitachi Vantara.
Universal Storage Platform (USP) was the brand name for an Hitachi Data Systems line of computer data storage disk arrays circa 2004 to 2010.
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