Veritas and Microsoft announce partnership

Vendors announce strategic deal to work on back-up software for SQL Server 2000.

Veritas Software and Microsoft have formed an alliance to make the SQL Server 2000 a more available database application. Veritas, which has worked with the Redmond giant before, will now design back-up software specifically for the SQL Server 2000.

"Our engineers will work on software to be sold by our resellers into the SQL arena," said Chris Boorman, director of marketing at Veritas. "Our partners will cross-sell, up-sell and value-add for customers looking to increase their database manageability."

The new alliance will target Microsoft's SQL database against rivals Oracle and IBM. Boorman said that Veritas already has relationships with most vendors because it manufactures only software.

"We are able to have strategic relationships with vendors because we don't manufacture hardware," he explained. "This helps our partners, because end users have mixed computing environments and, with so many vendor partnerships, it is easier to sell."

Mark Stanford, senior storage consultant at Veritas distributor Ideal Hardware, who believes that the deal will enhance the firms' channel offerings, said: "Software is the key to centralised management and enterprises increasingly wish to streamline software vendors within their infrastructure.

"The Veritas product suite encapsulates not only back-up but high-availability solutions and support for major databases and messaging platforms. This announcement reinforces Veritas' commitment to Microsoft, their customer base and their channel."

The alliance will focus on delivering product suites aimed at providing back-up for Windows 2000 Server and SQL Server 2000; adding functionality for Windows 2000 Advanced Server; and high availability, including Windows 2000 Datacenter Server.