EDEN PRAIRIE, MN – (August 18, 2000) --Rorke Data, a newly acquired subsidiary of Bell Microproducts, Inc. (NASDAQ: BELM), hosted its first international dealer meeting with over 20 resellers from throughout the Pacific Rim, South America, and Canada. The resellers are all well-positioned in their respective countries and represent vertical markets such as Digital Video, Publishing, and Medical Imaging--markets that Rorke is well-established in throughout the US and Europe.
The dealer meeting has driven Rorke engineers to design vertical SAN products for digital media applications. Developed for companies' mission-critical data centers, systems like Rorke's Studio Net-FC provide the latest in sharing capability of Fibre Channel networks while protecting valuable digital content. This allows Digital video and Publishing houses to easily store and exchange large files sizes, often gigabytes in size.
As a result of its acquistion by Bell, Rorke plans to leverage newly found world class buying power with its existing knowledge base of vertical market applications, SAN implementation, and related professional services. "Rorke's ability to be nimble in expanding data storage markets such as the Pacific Rim, complements Bell's strategy to be the largest distributor in the world for SAN related products and associated services,'' says Phil Roussey, Bell Microproducts' Executive Vice President of Marketing. "Furthermore, Rorke's SAN solutions are already approved by a wide variety of application OEMs like Media100, Pinnacle and Sony, and with Bell's backing, Rorke can go worldwide."
"Rorke has over 15 years experience in these rapidly changing vertical markets where high-capacity, high-performance data storage and large bandwidth networking are king," says Joe Rorke, Rorke's Vice President of Marketing, "The ability to leverage Bell Micro products in these markets on a world-wide scale is very exciting." Rorke's experience allows for truly open systems approach to heterogeneous platforms while addressing legacy equipment requirements. Rorke's vertical market resellers provide the infrastructure and knowledge to deploy cutting edge SAN technology anywhere in the world.
About Rorke Data. Rorke Data, a wholly owned subsidiary of Bell Microproducts, Inc., is a full digital storage solutions provider with expertise in Fibre Channel RAID, SAN, DVD, tape and optical libraries, Unix, NT and Mac environments, high bandwidth networks, digital asset and document management, and engineering and maintenance services. Founded in 1985, Rorke Data Europe, located in Emmen, The Netherlands, is composed of six divisions: Medical Archive Applications, Audio/Video, Prepress, Imaging, Document Management, Engineering and Installation Services. More information about Rorke Data can be found at www.rorke.com.
About Bell Microproducts. Bell Microproducts is a value added provider of a wide range of high technology products, solutions, and services to the industrial and commercial marketplace. The company's offering includes semiconductors, computer platforms, peripherals, and storage products of various types including desktop, high-end computer and storage subsystems, fibre channel connectivity products, RAID, NAS and SAN storage systems and back-up products. Bell Microproducts is an industry-recognized specialist in storage products and is one of the world's largest storage-centric value-added distributors.
The company's products are available at any level of integration from components, to subsystem assemblies, to fully integrated, tested and certified system solutions. The company adds value with a broad range of services including testing, software loading, kitting, mass storage system integration, and computer system integration. Trained and certified technical personnel complete each of these processes at Bell Microproducts' ISO 9002 facilities. Bell Microproducts markets and distributes more than 100 brand name product lines, as well as its own BellStor storage and TrademarkÒ computer brands, to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), contract electronic manufacturing services (EMS) customers, value-added resellers (VARs) and system integrators in the Americas and Europe. More information can be found in SEC filings, or by visiting the Bell Microproducts Web site at www.bellmicro.com.
Safe Harbor Statement. This release may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements, which reflect the Company's current views of the impact of the Ideal acquisition on Bell Microproducts and other future events and financial performance, involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties which could cause actual results or facts to differ materially from such statements for a variety of reasons including, but not limited to: the ability to successfully integrate the operations of Ideal, industry conditions, changes in product supply, pricing, and customer demand, competition, other vagaries in the computer and electronic components markets, changes in relationships with key suppliers and the other risks described from time to time in the company's reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission (including the company's Annual Report on Form 10-K). Investors should take such risks into account when making investment decisions. Shareholders and other readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date on which they are made. The company undertakes no obligation to update publicly or revise any forward-looking statements.
