SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA, January 22, 2001 - BakBone Software Inc. (TSE: BKB, OTC: BKBOF) and Exabyte Corporation (Nasdaq: EXBT), two leaders in the management and storage of corporate-critical information today announced a strategic alliance between the two companies with the goal of increasing sales through providing complete solutions to their growing customer base.

The alliance, announced jointly by the two companies, encompasses collaboration across a wide range of functions, ranging from engineering and development to marketing.

As a result of today's agreement, BakBone and Exabyte have agreed to:

• Jointly develop leading-edge solutions for the emerging SAN/NAS convergence market;
• Fully certify Exabyte's entire line of M2™ (Mammoth-2) LTO™ Ultrium™ tape libraries, MammothTape™ series tape drives, Fibre Channel libraries and its EZ17, 215 and 110L libraries, on BakBone's NetVault across multiple platforms and configurations, in both SAN and NAS implementations
• Coordinate marketing activities, beginning with a joint exhibit at the upcoming SNIA Technical Center opening, scheduled for February 1-2 in Colorado Springs, Colo.

The first result of the partnership between BakBone and Exabyte is the certification of Exabyte's full line of tape libraries and drives, including its M2 and LTO Ultrium libraries, on NetVault. The certification covers multiple platforms, including UNIX, Windows NT/2000 and Linux. The certification process was conducted jointly at Exabyte's labs in Boulder, Colo. and BakBone's Interoperability Center in San Diego. Certification took less than two days from start to finish, a tangible example of NetVault's ability to rapidly develop technical solutions across a wide range of manufacturers. "This serves as proof of our commitment to building lasting relationships with a wide range of leading manufacturers to deliver true solutions to the marketplace," said Randy Batterson, BakBone's director of strategic alliances.

The BakBone/Exabyte alliance takes on added significance in light of last week's introduction of NetVault™ 6.03, BakBone's backup and restore software, which combines unparalleled ease-of-use, ultra-fast performance and unlimited power regardless of the storage configuration. From direct-attach storage, to network attached storage (NAS) and storage area networks (SANs), the new version of NetVault makes it possible for users to easily manage their growing data loads, and enables them to implement a solution today that is advanced enough to meet tomorrow's needs.

"Exabyte has been developing strategic alliance programs working with ISVs and IHVs to enhance the performance and interoperability of its products in the high performance market," said Chet Baffa, Exabyte's vice president of sales and marketing. "BakBone, who is clearly an emerging leader in the backup and restore software field, has been working with us on a wide range of development and marketing programs. With M2 targeted to high performance applications, we've been truly amazed at the throughput demonstrated using M2 automation with BakBone software. The combination of NetVault with our high performance M2 and LTO libraries produces incredibly fast performance with the easiest-to-use solution we've seen."

"The convergence between NAS and SAN is no longer a theoretical possibility; it is a here-and-now reality," said Jack Corrao, BakBone Software's president/chief operating officer. "The alliance between BakBone and Exabyte puts us in a position to take advantage of that convergence today. That means real benefits for our customers and a true competitive advantage for us.

This is not the first time Exabyte and BakBone have worked together to bring powerful solutions to the market. Last year, BakBone engineers reported record results on Exabyte's M2 tape libraries. With both Fibre Channel and SCSI network configurations, the NetVault/M2 tandem delivered a record-setting sustained transfer rate of 14 MB/second during backups with little or no compression. In December, Open Magazine reviewed NetVault using the same configurations and reported an even higher rate of sustained throughput at 17.6 MB/second. According to Open Magazine, "NetVault was blowing through backups and restores like a Barchetta blowing through a (Volkswagen) Beetle."

About BakBone Software, Inc.

BakBone Software™ (TSE: BKB, OTC: BKBOF) is an international storage management software company that develops and globally distributes industry-leading storage management solutions to the open systems markets, providing data protection and management solutions scalable from workgroup to enterprise that will grow with a company's needs. BakBone's core products include nearline optical and archival, as well as tape backup and restore software for a full suite of storage management solutions to the corporate data center.

BakBone's corporate headquarters is located at 10145 Pacific Heights Boulevard, San Diego, California 92121. Its stock is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange and is included on the TSE 300 Composite, S&P/TSE Canadian SmallCap and TSE 200 indices. For more information on BakBone products, call 858-450-9009, e-mail sales@bakbone.com, or access BakBone's web site at www.bakbone.com.

About Exabyte Corporation

Exabyte Corporation is a leading supplier of tape storage devices and network storage solutions for the data intensive application and database server markets. Exabyte engineers, manufactures and markets 8mm and MammothTape™ technology tape drives, premier storage media and libraries for MammothTape, DLTtape™ and LTO™ Ultrium™ tape technologies. NetStorM™

SAN Alliance is an Exabyte partner program designed to allow companies implementing SANs to use tested, certified, top-of-the-line components from Exabyte and its partners with confidence. Exabyte's products are available exclusively through an extensive network of OEM, distributor and reseller business partners worldwide, all backed by the company's award-winning service and support.

For additional information about Exabyte and for sales, call 1-800-EXABYTE. For support and customer service, call 1-800-445-7736. Please call (+65)-271-6331 for Asia/Pacific and (+31)-30-2548800 for European inquiries. To have investor information faxed, call 201-946-0091, or download information from the investor relations' room on the company's Web site. For investor-related questions, please call 303-786-7000, ext. 226 or e-mail investor@exabyte.com. Visit Exabyte on the Web at www.exabyte.com, mammothtape.com and www.m2wins.com.

Safe Harbor

The statements contained in this press release that are not historical in nature are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees since there are inherent difficulties in predicting future results, and actual results could differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements.