Officially, Imation became an independent company on July 1, 1996 . However, they are not new to the industry. They have been involved in data storage technology all the way back to the 1940's as part of 3M. The company boasts such accomplishments as the introduction of the 3.5 inch diskette in 1984, the first quarter inch data tape in 1971, and the first magnetic tape in 1947.
The company is headquartered in Oakdale,MN with a research and development facility located there as well. In Wahpeton, ND, there is a data storage manufacturing plant. Rochester, MN is home to a data storage software development facility.
The company and it's plants have received many awards. In 2000, Imation was awarded Industryweek's Annual Best Plants Award for Wahpeton, ND plant—one of the "14 Best Manufacturing Plants in North America and Europe." 2000 also saw the company being named one of "America's Most Admired Companies' by Fortune Magazine. Throughout the company's brief solo existence, they have formed various connections and agreements with such companies as Oracle, Kodak, Hewlett-Packard, Lucent Technologies, Quantum, Microbox, and Sun Microsystems.
It is cleary evidenced that Imation is a dynamic company. They are continually developing new and worthwhile products while maintaining the widest range of available solutions. Besides being very successful, Imation also sponsors education. They have a program for High School Computer Arts Scholarships and they are currently financing a senior design project at the University of North Dakota. I am a member of that senior design team. I apologize if this writeup seems like a paid advertisement for the company, but I was really impressed after I started looking into Imation when I learned of my senior project.
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