Sony Offers New CD-Rewritable Drives With USB and i.LINK (IEEE1394) Interfaces

SAN JOSE, Calif.--March 22, 1999--Sony today announced its first CD-Rewritable drives to incorporate the popular USB interface and the i.LINK(TM) (IEEE1394 aka FireWire) interface.

The Spressa USB drive supports quad speed (4X) recording of CD-R media, double speed (2X) of CD-RW media, and CD-ROM maximum reading performance of 6X. The Spressa USB drive can be used with both Macintosh® and Windows® computers.

The Spressa i.LINK drive supports quad speed (4X) recording of CD-R and CD-RW discs, and CD-ROM maximum reading performance of 24X. i.LINK technology enables maximum performance and allows other multimedia peripherals including digital video and still cameras to be daisy chained simply and easily. The Spressa i.LINK drive for Macintosh systems will be Sony's first offering, with Windows compatibility available in the Fall.

The Sony Spressa USB drive has a suggested list price of and will be available in March. The Spressa i.LINK drive will be offered in June at a suggested list price of .