FREMONT, Calif., October 9, 2001 -- Lexar Media Inc., a leading designer, developer and marketer of award-winning high-performance digital media and reader products, today announced its 16X Professional Series CompactFlash™ Digital Film will begin shipping November 1 and will debut at PhotoPlus Expo in New York City, November 1-3. The 16X speed rated Professional Series memory cards, capable of a minimum sustained write speed of 2.4MB per second, will significantly reduce the time it takes for many digital cameras to read and write high-resolution image files. Lexar Media pioneered the adoption of the “x” speed rating for solid state storage, where x equals 150 kb per second, as used by other digital storage devices such as CD ROMs. “Improvements in camera resolution and image quality have increased the importance of our speed-rated CompactFlash cards,” said Eric Stang, president and CEO, Lexar Media. “Lexar Media has long been the performance leader in memory cards and the only company to individually speed-rate its products so that our customers know exactly what performance they are buying. After many years of insisting otherwise, other companies are finally recognizing that speed matters to photographers and are beginning to disclose the write speed of their cards. While we are sincerely flattered by this imitation, we remain concerned that many of these claims are based on misleading metrics. Their product claims of ‘speeds up to’ are no guarantee of minimum levels of performance.” Lexar Media Professional Series CompactFlash digital film has become the choice of professional photographers shooting world-renowned events including the Superbowl, Grammy Awards, Miss America Pageant and Eco-Challenge because of its speed, product features and value-add professional services. Pro Series customers receive free 24-hour technical support and free data recovery services. Lexar Media CompactFlash has upgradeable firmware to allow it to be optimized for specific cameras models, is guaranteed to be compatible with CompactFlash digital cameras, is USB-enabled for quick and easy image transfer and is covered by a lifetime warranty. “We have seen our business grow in part due to the assurance our speed-rating provides our customers,” said Stang. “Lexar Media has great momentum right now and I expect even more positive results as we begin to realize sales from these new and highly-differentiated products. We will continue to bring out products that enhance the professional through consumer digital photography experience.”