Fast quick to pounce on rival's channel partners
Vendor attempts to lure resellers away from recently merged software firms Verity and Autonomy
Following Autonomy’s acquisition of Verity earlier this month rival vendor Fast Search & Transfer (Fast) is launching an aggressive migration strategy to tempt its channel partners and customers onto its own books.
Infrastructure software vendor Autonomy acquired search-management vendor Verity for $500m last week (CRN, 14 November) claiming the deal would enhance its product range and allow for smooth integration of both product sets. However, at the time John Lervik, chief executive of Fast, said there was “little, if any synergy between the two product sets”.
Fast is offering its Safe Passage Programme to resellers and customers that it has claimed are “facing uncertainty” following the acquisition.
Ali Riaz, president of Fast, said: “Following the acquisition everybody knows that one of the two vendors’ offerings will be canned because they cannot possibly run competing products. It is most likely to be Verity’s as it was the one that was acquired.
“There is likely to be a lot of partners out there that have developed skills around those products and all of a sudden their lifeline will be gone. We are creating a migration framework that will make it easy for Verity partners to make the switch and encourage their end-user customers to do the same.”
However, Mike Lynch, group chief executive of Autonomy, hit back.
“Fast has lost almost all contested corporate pan-enterprise search and processing decisions to Verity or Autonomy. This has allowed Autonomy the sustained growth that has enabled this acquisition. We see no reason why customers or partners who have previously rejected Fast would consider them now.
“Verity customers are safe in the knowledge of a protected existing investment and being part of an organisation with over 17.000 customers, 300 OEMS and an R&D spend of over $50m a year,” he said.