Jean-Jacques Maleval passed away

The StorageNewsletter team is sad to announce the death of Jean-Jacques Maleval, earlier this year, February 3, 2025.

For those who work in the data storage industry for a few decades, we all know Jean-Jacques. He’s recognized for two major things, at least in France for the first one and more globally for the second.

RIP Jean-Jacques (1948-2025)

First, one of his passions, basketball, always had a special place in his heart, having introduced NBA and NCAA leagues in France. He even wrote a famous book “This fabulous US basketball” (original French title: “Ce fabuleux basket américain”) published in 1972. When he was younger, he played a few minutes in the final game of the French University Championship, the equivalent of the NCAA Final Four in France. 

Cover of his book “Ce fabuleux basket américain“

He also was a pioneer of basketball statistics in France and he programmed a specific computing tool to display all seasons and associated ratio and numbers. The anecdote was that a good American friend shipped him recordings on NTSC cartridges 2 or 3 times per week, it was 50 years ago approximately. Of course, he wrote for L’Équipe, the French premier daily sport newspaper, and a weekly paper, Micro-Basket, also in French. L’Équipe published a paper about him and one also appeared in Basket Europe last February.

Jean-Jacques Maleval (at the left) during the visit of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in Paris in 1976. (courtesy: L’Équipe)

His second passion and real blood was his journalist DNA until his last day, already illustrated in basketball with several magazines mentioned above but culminating in data storage. He published several French magazines, Le Courier de la Microcopie (on micrographics), Reproduire (on photocopying and printing) and collaborated to the creation of Mémoires Optiques magazine (MOS Magazine, dedicated to the archiving and optical disc industry).

He started Computer Data Storage Newsletter in 1988, after several other publications, as a 16 pages print monthly issue already in english to address a worldwide audience.

He realized that online publication was the way to go and in 2007, he launched the web site under the StorageNewsletter.com domain name we all use daily today and where you read this current sad news. And one key element of this was and continues to be a free worldwide news website collecting and publishing all market news with company profile, leaders interview, comments, analysis and a few other statistics he loved to compile. In other words, if you’re looking for company news, we should have it, as of today we have published around 80,000 articles.

Jean-Jacques really embodied an independent and ethical approach to his job, he lived this as a mission.

He was a pioneer and became a reference and a model for many of us, the original Jean-Jacques’ mission will remain intact.

The entire StorageNewsletter editorial team, past and current partners and contributors, address to his wife Isabelle, Benjamin and Boris, his 2 sons, our most sincere condolences.

Jean-Jacques Maleval, Philippe Nicolas and Richard Gruet (from left to right)

The team he put in place several years ago will continue on his mission and StorageNewsletter, as Jean-Jacques desired, will be owned and led by Philippe Nicolas going forward.

— Philippe Nicolas, StorageNewsletter