GlassBridge Enterprises, Inc., formerly Imation Corporation, is an American holding company. Through its subsidiary, Glassbridge focuses primarily on investment and asset management. The company was founded in 1996 under its original name of Imation as a spin-off of 3M's data storage and imaging business. Prior to the name change, Imation had three core elements: traditional storage (

magnetic tape Magnetic tape is a medium for magnetic storage made of a thin, magnetizable coating on a long, narrow strip of plastic film. It was developed in Germany in 1928, based on the earlier magnetic wire recording from Denmark. Devices that use magnetic ...

and optical products), secure and scalable storage (data backup, data archive and data security for small and medium businesses) and what the company calls "audio and video information" products. In January 2017, the company announced a change of name and direction, completing its move away from the data storage business towards being focused on asset management and strategic investment and rebranding itself as Glassbridge Enterprises. The Imation brand was sold off later that year to O-Jin Corporation Co., a Korean company who have since licensed its use to other businesses, but retain ownership of it .

History

As Imation

Imation was started in 1996, when 3M spun off its data storage and imaging business. The company underwent a divestment of non-core businesses, and invested in four core product technology areas: secure storage, scalable storage, wireless/connectivity, and magnetic tape. As part of 3M, the company was involved in the development of many technological improvements in data storage, such as the introduction of the first American-made magnetic tape in 1947, the first quarter-inch tape cartridge for data storage ( QIC) in 1971, and the

floppy disk A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, a diskette, or a disk) is a type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined with a ...

in 1984. In late 2007, Imation acquired TDK's recording media business, including flash media, optical media, magnetic tape, and accessories, for $300 million. This also included a license to use the "TDK Life on Record" brand on data storage and audio products for 25 years. In September 2015, Imation announced that it had agreed to relinquish this license and would cease selling TDK-branded products by the end of the year. In February 2012, Imation announced a product set to secure mobile data, identities, and workspaces, based on the idea that employees used portable storage devices to transport corporate data. The security news followed five acquisitions the company made in 2011 in scalable storage and data security: ENCRYPTX; MXI Security from Memory Experts International; the assets of ProStor; the secure data storage hardware business of IronKey; and intellectual property from Nine Technologies. Imation received an exclusive license from IronKey for its secure storage management software and service and a license to use the IronKey brand for secure storage products. In October 2011, Imation products for small and medium businesses centered on its DataGuard and InfiniVault multi-tier data protection and data archive appliances. The company sold consumer electronics, headphones and accessories under the Imation, Memorex, TDK Life on Record, and XtremeMac brands. The combined Imation, Memorex and TDK Life on Record brands made the company into a global market share leader in sales of CD-R and DVD media before that business was shut down in 2016.

Change of name and direction

In January 2017, Imation announced its intention to change its name to Glassbridge Enterprises, completing its change of direction away from the data storage business towards being an asset management and strategic investment company. The name change became effective on February 21, 2017. Net revenue for 2016 was $44.1 million, compared to $529.2 million the year before.

Sale of Imation brand

Glassbridge Enterprises sold the Imation brand name to Korean company O-Jin Corporation Co., Ltd. (now Ojin Corporation Co.) on August 4, 2017. In 2019 Imation, by then under O-Jin's ownership, announced licensing deals for use of the brand by PNY Technology,

Ritek RITEK Corporation is a Taiwanese company that manufactures optical discs such as compact disc, compact discs (CDs), DVD, DVDs, and Blu-ray, as well as storage cards such as CompactFlash cards, SD cards and MultiMediaCard, MultiMediaCards, Flash ...

Corporation and photo printer company Prinics. O-Jin still owns the Imation brand.

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