THE WELCH COMPANY
440 Davis Court #1602
San Francisco, CA 94111-2496
415 781 5700


October 25, 2001

02 05 02 61 01102501



Mr. Leroy NLN
Customer Rep
LeRoyR@Exabyte.COM
Technical Support
Exabyte Corporation
1685 38th Street
Boulder, CO 80301

Subject:   Pending Issues Technical Support
Incident 279596 Performance Improvements Mammoth LT SE
Telecon Exabyte and Welch on October 24, 2001
Delivery terminator and firmware scheduled October 26, 2001

Dear Leroy,

Thanks for your letter this morning reporting the terminator and tape for updating firmware are scheduled for delivery tomorrow, October 26, 2001.

In our call yesterday, I asked about status of issues in our letter to Exabyte on October 18, 2001, and understood that you planned to investigate and call today to discuss progress. Sometimes discussion can expedite understanding because some people are not comfortable explaining complicated details in correspondence.

Please note that your letter today does not have a Subject.

Recommend consideration of entering an incident number and short description in the Subject, for example: terminator/firmware delivery; or, something to alert customers that the letter is a legitimate business matter, rather than a virus attack, which has been much in the news lately.

On October 11, 2001 Alice Gilbert, Supervisor for Tech Support, indicated Exabyte strives to be thorough and timely. In this case, we agreed to 2nd day delivery because Exabyte represented this would yield delivery on October 15, 2001, discussed with Charles and Carrie on October 11. Since delivery is now scheduled for October 26, the objective of expedited shipment has been frustrated, resulting in unnecessary extra expense to the customer.

Under current circumstances of a national emergency following events of September 11, 2001, it is understandable that shipments have been delayed worldwide to enable increased security. There is naturally a ripple effect that will impact even benign shipments for some time to come, as we all scramble to accommodate new procedures in response to new realities. Accordingly, we do not fault Exabyte, nor request credit for failure to perform on our agreement of October 11, 2001.

These new realities impact every facet of enterprise and daily life, and so require extra effort by all hands.

That is why I am taking an extra moment to request Exabyte respond to the pending matters shown in the record today, under Alice's report that Exabyte strives to be timely and thorough. Experience shows that allowing pending issues to go unattended causes rework that takes extra time and expense. As rework mounts, the economy falters when too many people are having too many problems. If you feel that responding to pending matters is beyond your scope of duties, please forward to Alice for follow up.

Thanks for your help expediting our order.

Sincerely,

THE WELCH COMPANY



Rod Welch
rowelch@attglobal.net