The company started in
Mountain View, California, in 1969, under the name Information Terminals, founded by Reid Anderson. It grew quickly and became a leading manufacturer of floppy disks by the end of the 1970s, and it was soon renamed Verbatim. In 1982, it formed a floppy disk
joint venture with Japanese company Mitsubishi Kasei (forerunner of
Mitsubishi Chemical), with the joint venture called Kasei Verbatim. Verbatim mostly struggled in the decade and was purchased by
Kodak in 1985, while its floppy partnership with Mitsubishi Kasei was still intact. It was eventually purchased fully by Mitsubishi Kasei in March 1990, after eight years in a joint venture. Many new products were launched under the new Japanese ownership, and the brand saw immense growth in the decade.
Mitsubishi Kagaku Media was founded in October 1994 as a subsidiary through the merger of Mitsubishi Kasei and Mitsubishi Petrochemical, resulting in Mitsubishi Chemical. The company sold products under the
Mitsubishi brand in Japan from 1994 to 2010, when Verbatim fully replaced it.
Key dates • 1969: Information Terminals is founded in Mountain View, California, U.S. • 1976: Information Terminals begins manufacturing magnetic tape for use in its cassettes and floppy disks. • 1978: Information Terminals is officially renamed Verbatim. • 1979: Verbatim goes public; sales grow to $36 million. • 1985:
Kodak announces its $174 million bid for Verbatim. • 1990: Mitsubishi Kasei acquires Verbatim. • 1992: The company buys
Carlisle Memory Products. • 1994: Mitsubishi Kasei and Mitsubishi Petrochemical merge to create Mitsubishi Chemical, and a new subsidiary, Mitsubishi Kagaku Media, is founded. Verbatim brand replaced by Mitsubishi in Japan. • 1994: Verbatim enters a joint venture with
Sanyo Laser Products. • 1995: Acquires
Laser Technologies and
Ecotone. • 2007: Acquires
SmartDisk. • 2009: Acquires
Freecom. • 2009: Verbatim brand returns to the Japanese market for the first time since 1994. • 2010: Mitsubishi Kagaku Media unifies all recordable discs products under one umbrella Verbatim brand in the Japanese market. • 2019: Agreement to be bought by
CMC Magnetics. • 2020: CMC Magnetics acquires Verbatim.
Notable info about historical products floppy disks from 1978 • In 1969, the first digital-grade tape cassettes were released. • 8" diskettes were first released in 1974. • In 1991, Verbatim released the world's first 3.5"
magneto-optical disk. • Verbatim started its successful foray into the optical disc market in 1993 with
CD-R media. • In 1997, Verbatim released the world's first
CD-RW format media. • In 2001, Verbatim released the world's first
DVD+R format media. • Introduced the first 8.5 GB
DVD+R DL products in 2004, followed by
DVD-R DL in 2005. • Verbatim launched a new product range of
LED lights in 2010. Minidata Cartridge Verbatim DC 2120 QIC 80 Iomega Tape 250.JPG|Minidata Cartridge formatted for
Iomega Tape 250, 1999 Verbatim ST-600 XD 1.jpg|Verbatim ST 600 XD High Density Streamer Cassette 2015 Dysk zewnętrzny Verbatim.jpg|An
external HDD, 2015 ==Products==