Vendors seal storage deals
Adaptec and Veritas reveal their acquisition prowess in the midst of storage market doldrums
Despite many vendors reporting disappointing financial results recently, the storage market is continuing to evolve. Evidence of this came last week when two vendors launched themselves onto the acquisition trail.
Adaptec acquired NAS specialist Snap Appliance for $100m. This gives Adaptec a stronger presence in the NAS market, as well as Snap's GuardianOS software, which offers the ability to manage both block and file data.
It also provides Adaptec with a channel to a range of enterprise customers demanding data centre solutions, although it is not clear to what extent the companies' customer bases will overlap.
"Adaptec does a pretty good job of approaching large resellers in Europe, but Snap has good reach here as well. There is some overlap in the customer sets but they also complement each other and we expect the resellers to be the same," said Russ Johnson, general manager at Adaptec EMEA.
Mike Collins, UK and Ireland channel manager at storage sales and marketing firm Navistor, said he doubts customer overlap will prove problematic.
"Adaptec is a strong company with top-notch products, so there are many people Snap will talk to about NAS who will also be taking some of Adaptec's products. But I don't think this is going to create any major issues," he said.
Adaptec is likely to retain the Snap brand initially, although new packages that merge both companies' technologies are likely to appear over time.
Elsewhere, storage software giant Veritas has acquired Invio Software for $35m. Invio, a specialist in process automation, has already licensed part of its code for use in Veritas's Command Central Service 4.0 utility computing suite. Invio is Veritas's fourth utility computing acquisition in 19 months.
Michael Fanelli, western regional manager at SSI hubcity, a US storage reseller, said that any time Veritas can acquire more technology to make its product line a 'do anything for you suite' will help advance the company's utility computing plans.
"Everyone touts information lifecycle management, data lifecycle management, all these things, and say they can do it all," he said.
"No one can do it all, but Veritas has been doing a better job than most at integrating all of its different acquisitions into one single offering."