Sony AIT drive units are Out !???

Acording to a Sony Sales person Sony will no longer market or sell AIT tape units as of March 2010. For the price, these units were of the best in the market with a great proven functional record. I hope there is a Sony replacement for this great product

[Sony Letter]

Sony Electronics Inc.

1 Sony Drive, Park Ridge, New Jersey 07656

October 2009

Dear Valued Sony AIT Tape Drive Customer:

This letter serves as a soft reminder to our channel partners that, as of March 2010, Sony Electronics Inc. will no longer be offering AIT drives or AIT library/automation systems. This difficult decision was made after careful review and consideration.

As stated in our previous letter issued in April 2009, Sony will continue to accept purchase orders for delivery through March 2010 subject to product availability, however, due to stronger than expected sales demand, we are already running out of inventory on some product lines, specifically AIT-2T, AIT-3 and AIT-5 tape drives.

As a result of this, we are compelled to inform you of the models which are still available for sales as of this date, as shown below;

Currently Available Models Single drive		Library / Autoloader	E-mail archiving
AITI100S	AITI390S	LIB81A3XBB	OEASW500B1
AITI100AS	AITE390S	LIB81A3XBRBB	OEABF1000B1
AITI100ST	LIB162A3XBB	CV1UE2000B1
AITE100S	AITI520S	LIB81A4BB
AITE100UL	AITE520S	LIB81A4BRBB
LIB162A4BB

Easier Maintenance of Sony AIT-3 WORM Tape