History 2001: Financially-Troubled Exabyte Becomes Sub-800 Person Company

Financially-troubled Exabyte has undertaken significant restructuring, with the layoff of 250 people worldwide, including 200 in USA, primarily at the Boulder, CO headquarters, and 25 in small production sites in Scotland and Germany.

The tape drive company now numbers less than 800 people in the world.

Bill Marriner, chairman and CEO, also effected major housecleaning in his senior management team. Three VPs will leave the firm: Chet Baffa, who was in charge of sales and marketing, Farouk Al-Nasser, who handled data storage products, and Manfred Benecken, responsible for support services.

As of now, the list of execs reporting to Marriner consists of: Steve Smith, CFO and general counsel; John Gardner, VP sales and marketing; Mike Flood, VP corporate quality; Marcelo Bergquist, VP manufacturing; Jorgen Frandsen, VP drive engineering; Gerry Schadegg, director technical support; Tim Studebaker, VP automation engineering; Jose Irizarry, director services and information technology; and Craig Smith, director program and project management

This article is an abstract of news published on issue 160 on May 2001 from the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter.