Plasmon, the market leader for professional optical storage solutions, announced it has hired computer systems marketing veteran Dave DuPont to lead its marketing efforts. The company increases its marketing efforts to further establish UDO drive technology as a standard in optical storage. Dave DuPont has been successfully served as a leading executive in major companies such as Dell and HP, and his marketing experience in the high tech world is expected to be valuable and constructive for Plasmon. In addition, Sony has announced development of a blue-laser based optical disc system for data storage, available by the end of this year. Plasmon is increasing its marketing, sales and business development efforts in conjunction with its upcoming launch of Ultra Density Optical (UDO™) technology. UDO is expected to rewrite the economics of optical storage, offering higher performance and greater capacity at a lower cost. The attractive per-gigabyte cost and increased performance is expected to broaden optical’s appeal as IT managers address the need for reliable, cost-effective data management and long-term protection of their data assets.

DuPont, who has more than 16 years marketing experience in the high tech world, most recently served as Vice President, Marketing and Business Development at Lefthand Networks, an emerging growth network storage company. Prior to that, he served as a senior executive for Dell Computer Corporation's North American Precision Workstation business, directly responsible for the profit and loss of an $800 million product line.

Before that, DuPont was with Hewlett-Packard Company, beginning as a product manager in 1988, and serving in a variety of increasingly responsible marketing roles in the company's PC and UNIX systems businesses. DuPont led the launch of HP's Kayak Workstation product line, and in his last role with the company, led the Kayak marketing effort worldwide. He has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University and an MBA from Harvard.

"Dave’s strong marketing background and in-depth knowledge of the computer industry will serve us well in our upcoming launch of UDO to the marketplace," said Nigel Street, Plasmon’s CEO. "His marketing savvy, industry relationships and strategic thinking will serve as great assets to our marketing efforts. It will help us more rapidly and effectively bring UDO to key OEMs and industry partners."