Software purchase puts Overland on fast track

Company set to buy storage software vendor following the loss of its OEM agreement with HP

Overland Data has acquired primary storage software vendor Zetta Systems for $9m to support its increased focus on storage software, following the end of its OEM tape emulation agreement with Hewlett-Packard (HP).

Chris James, European marketing director at Overland, said the acquisition adds to its software portfolio.

“The acquisition gets us where we want to be quickly. It provides us with a complete solution, as we look to move more into storage software and away from hardware,” he said.

Overland develops disk-to-disk backup and tape library hardware. The addition of a software division will make the vendor more reliant on the channel as a route to market.

Christopher Calisi, chief executive of Overland, said: “We intend to use our worldwide network of resellers to become the leader in mid-range protected tiered storage solutions.”

Tony Cotterill, managing director of BridgeHead software, which partners with Overland to provide it with storage software, said: “Overland can have a partner strategy that brings it the software it needs from an external source, which means it can’t have a unique product; or it can acquire that source and develop a unique software product internally,” he said.

Also last week, HP and Overland split over their OEM agreement. HP had been Overland’s largest OEM vendor, but from next year it is expected to source tape automation products from another vendor. James admitted this could be the German storage hardware vendor BDT.

Overland said the impact of HP’s decision will take effect during this financial year, ended 30 June 2006.

Calisi added: “Although we will have a lower revenue base, we anticipate a significant increase in gross margin due to higher branded sales.”

HP declined to comment, but said in a statement: “HP has made the decision to enhance and expand the current tape automation offering during the next fiscal year. The offerings include products similar to those supplied by Overland.”