News Release

SAN JOSE, Calif., Jan. 11, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Sphere 3D Corp. (NASDAQ:ANY), a containerization, virtualization and data management solutions provider and parent company of Overland Storage and Tandberg Data, today announced encouraging initial results from its Microsoft Azure joint marketing campaign. In-market tactics launched in late November 2015 were directed to a control portion, subset of its dedicated customers that use its SnapServer® and SnapScale® on-premise storage solutions. The campaign entices them to augment their existing solutions with Sphere 3D’s SnapCLOUD™  - a cloud-based data storage product which is available from the Microsoft Azure Marketplace. The campaign has already resulted in over 100 SnapCLOUD customer deployments, meeting 40% of the target goal for the original 90-day period.    

“This effort is designed to galvanize the inter-relationships of the various brands within the Sphere3D portfolio. We believe we will continue to gain traction through vertical integration of our distinctive capabilities that are designed to catalyze adoption of our products,” said Eric Kelly, CEO of Sphere 3D.  “Many of these same loyal SnapServer and SnapScale customers have also begun looking at our G-Series Cloud, application containerization solution, powered by Glassware 2.0™, which is also available in the Microsoft Azure Marketplace.”  

“My organization has been very pleased with the SnapServer product line and I view it as a trusted brand for reliability, data protection, and enterprise-grade performance,” said Macon Barham, owner of a leading national insurance agency, based in Peachtree City, GA. “When we learned about the SnapCLOUD solution last month, with its ability to provision our unstructured data in minutes within the Microsoft Azure Cloud Marketplace, it was an easy decision to help round out our data storage infrastructure.” He continued by stating, “I really like how the cloud approach allows me to control expenses by paying only for what we use; and if we need more we can quickly increase our capacity without taking on the IT expense or burden of build out and technical support.”

Sphere 3D has a large customer base of SnapServer users, consisting of both Small and Medium-sized Business (SMBs), as well as large enterprises, that are seeking to augment their on-premise storage solutions with a hybrid cloud infrastructure.  The SnapCLOUD offering in the Microsoft Azure Marketplace allows customers to easily deploy a cloud-based solution while recognizing the great benefits of flexibility, load balancing and security offered by Microsoft Azure.

For a trial of SnapCLOUD from Microsoft Azure, go to https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/marketplace/partners/sphere3d/snapcloud-standard/.

About SnapCLOUD

SnapCLOUD™ is a virtual storage platform based on Sphere 3D’s SnapServer® on-premise data storage operating system, which has been installed by 300,000 plus customers worldwide.  SnapCLOUD brings the simplicity of deploying enterprise-grade data storage in minutes to meet unplanned business growth needs. The storage offering is unique in its ability to unify data manageability, access control and replication between the physical data center and the public cloud, because it is a true hybrid cloud architecture.  SnapCLOUD delivers the following benefits:

• Users can create a high performance and resilient virtual environment in minutes, using servers, storage and networking from the Microsoft Azure Marketplace.  On top of this, customers only pay for what they use.
• Users get secure data access anywhere and on any device. Built-in sync and share functionality enables users and devices to share data directly from SnapCLOUD in conformance with business policies.
• Users can centrally manage and monitor their on-premise physical data center and their data in the cloud, allowing data management across the organization to be the same everywhere.

About Sphere 3D
Sphere 3D Corp. (NASDAQ: ANY) delivers containerization and virtualization technologies along with data management products that enable workload-optimized solutions. We achieve this through a combination of containerized applications, virtual desktops, virtual storage and physical hyper-converged platforms. Sphere 3D’s value proposition is simple and direct—we allow organizations to deploy a combination of public, private or hybrid cloud strategies while backing them up with state of the art storage solutions.  Sphere 3D, along with its wholly-owned subsidiaries Overland Storage and Tandberg Data, has a strong portfolio of brands including Glassware 2.0™, SnapCLOUD™, SnapScale®, SnapServer®, V3, RDX®, and NEO®.  For more information, visit www.sphere3d.com.

Media Contacts:
Eileen Elam
408-283-4734 
media.relations@sphere3d.com 

Nick Foot
BWW Communications
+44-1491-636393
Nick.foot@bwwcomms.com

Investor Contact:
Blueshirt Group
Michael Bishop
415-217-4968
mike@blueshirtgroup.com

Safe Harbor Statement

This press release may contain forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions that are difficult to predict. Actual results and the timing of events could differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking statements as a result of risks and uncertainties including, without limitation, unforeseen changes in the course of Sphere 3D’s business or the business of its wholly-owned subsidiaries, including, without limitation, Overland Storage and Tandberg Data;; the level of success of our collaborations and business partnerships; possible actions by customers, partners, suppliers, competitors or regulatory authorities; and other risks detailed from time to time in Sphere 3D’s periodic reports contained in our Annual Information Form and other filings with Canadian securities regulators (www.sedar.com) and in prior periodic reports filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (www.sec.gov). Sphere 3D undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement, whether written or oral, that may be made from time to time, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise, except as required by law.