Holographic Storage Firm InPhase Technologies Shuts DownFebruary 8, 2010
 LONGMONT, COLO.:InPhase
Technologies, a pioneer in holographic storage, has gone out of business and
had assets seized by the Colorado Department of Revenue for back taxes, local
media outlets report. The company was said to owe the state more than $10,000.
A public auction of the assets is pending. The company’s 60 employees received
final paychecks Friday, after nearly a year of working at reduced wages while
lead investor Bart Stuck sought additional funding. The Longmont
Times-Call said one engineer from InPhase was being paid $11 an hour.
InPhase, spun out of Bell Labs around 10 years ago, had raised and run on
around $100 million in venture capital, including $20 million in January, 2009.
Within five years, it was demonstrating holographic storage, whereby data is
stored within the physical body of a disc rather than merely on the surface. A
holographic disc was said to store 30 times more data than a DVD. TV Technology gave InPhase a Star Award
at the NAB Show in 2006. Network
Computing named it one of the Top 10 Startups to watch in 2007, when it was
expected to bring a product to market. The prototype was featured in Popular
Science magazine as a “Best of What’s New ’07,” with a projected
$18,000 price tag. Turner Broadcasting conducted the first TV trail with the
technology, switching in an ad for the National Basketball Association from a
holographic disc. (eWeek
has details.)
Despite the attention, InPhase was unable to bring a product to market, even
though it lists several resellers and OEM partners, including Hitachi, also an
investor. Others include Investors include Stuck’s Signal Lake, New Venture
Partners, Bayer MaterialScience AG, Newton Technology Partners, ALPS Electric
Co., Yasuda Enterprise Development, Japan Asia Investment Co., Nanotech
Partners and B.J. Cassin.
General Electric has also been working on holographic storage and was said last
April to be talking to potential partners about bringing the technology to
market, according to Enterprise
Storage. -- Deborah D. McAdams
| COMMENTS (5) | | 02/22/2010 | | Too bad. Good people, good scientist and engineers...
The management leaves alot to be desired though. Too much hype/spin... |
| | 02/11/2010 | | Interestingly the seizure signs have disappeared. The county estimated that the company actually had sales in 2009, but actually had none.
As far as the technology, InPhase has meet all its goals and was ready for volume production. Since the capital outlay to make 1000s of drives and media was more than the current VC could handle, the company simple could not go to the next stage of development.
The technology is there, if not the business sense/resources. Don't count holographic data storage yet.
|
| | 02/09/2010 | | Seized for back taxes of $10,000 on 60 employees? That's harsh. |
| | 02/09/2010 | | Good people with a great idea..sad news indeed. Although I did call this a year ago about holographic storage still being way out. I think they really should be given some time to sort things out. It's a terrible economy out there....
Alani Kuye
Phantom Data Systems Inc
http://phantomdatasystems.com |
| | 02/08/2010 | | This is sad news. They were good people with a good idea. |
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