ECMA-350 finishes fast-track standardization as ISO/IEC 17345

Ecma International, the industry association dedicated to the standardization of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) systems and Plasmon (LSE: PLM), the market leader for professional data archival solutions, today jointly announced that the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and International Electrotechnical Committee (IEC) officially adopted ECMA-350, the UDO? (Ultra Density Optical) Media Format Standard published last December. The new certified standard, which is known as ISO/IEC 17345, specifies the mechanical, physical and optical characteristics of Rewritable and true Write Once, 30GB UDO media. UDO is the only blue laser optical storage format to receive ISO/IEC approval, marking another major milestone in the acceptance of UDO as an industry recognized technology standard.

ISO/IEC 17345 progressed from Draft International Standard (DIS) to International Standard (IS) in just five months. Standard ECMA-350, approved in December 2003 by the Ecma General Assembly, was submitted to ISO/IEC in February 2004 for adoption under the "Fast-Track" procedure. The ballot concluded in July 2004 and the voting results revealed that the UDO standard was approved unanimously by all members in the 28 countries represented.

"The adoption by ISO/IEC of the UDO standard first published by Ecma International is another example of market-driven standardization which is highly relevant for the users of products based on international high-quality standards. Plasmon is to be congratulated on developing the new world standard in optical disk technology for the data storage market" said Jan van den Beld, Secretary General of Ecma International.

"We are delighted that ISO/IEC has recognized UDO as an official international standard," said Dr. Robert Longman, Engineering Director at Plasmon. "Having a fully documented and open international standard is particularly significant since companies are using UDO to archive digital records for many years. The ISO standard provides assurance for those companies investing in the technology and defines a frame for backward compatible future UDO generations offering 60GB and 120GB capacities." He continues, "Ecma International, ISO and IEC are three of the world's most trusted technical standards organizations so we are confident that the release of ISO/IEC 17345 will be very well received by the storage industry".

Ecma Standard 350 was developed by TC31, the Ecma Technical Committee created in 1984 for the standardization of optical disks and optical disk cartridges. Technical Committee TC31 benefits from particularly broad industry representation, with members from companies such as Fujitsu, Hewlett Packard, Hitachi, IBM, JVC, Le Carvennec Consultants, Mitsubishi, NEC, Panasonic/Matsushita, Philips, Pioneer, Plasmon, Ricoh, Samsung, Sony and Toshiba. ECMA-350 was published in December 2003 and includes all technical contents for the UDO Media Format Standard. It can be downloaded free of charge in Acrobat PDF from the Ecma website (http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/files/ECMA-ST/ECMA-350.pdf).

ISO/IEC 17345 will be published in autumn 2004 and the publication will be made available online at that time.