Storage system vendor EMC Tuesday announced that it plans to acquire content management specialist Documentum in an all-stock deal valued at $1.7 billion.

Documentum develops enterprise document management software for managing unstructured content such as Web pages, medical records or audio and video files. The software runs on many operating system platforms but is most closely tied to EMC's storage hardware, Documentum said.

"The vast majority of all information in the enterprise is unstructured. It simply is not well managed," EMC CEO Joe Tucci said in a conference call with journalists. "EMC is focused on building a very strong infrastructure layer, including tiered storage. With Documentum, we are now adding the intelligence layer which brings structure to unstructured data."

The two companies have worked together since the April 2002 introduction of EMC's content-addressed storage platform, Centera, they said in a statement.

EMC has offered 2.175 shares of EMC common stock for each share of Documentum common stock, according to EMC Chief Financial Officer Bill Teuber. Based on the closing price of $14.45 on Oct. 13, that values the deal at $1.7 billion, he said in the conference call. EMC expects to close the deal in the first quarter of 2004, pending the approval of regulators and of Documentum stockholders, he said.

The acquisition will slightly reduce earnings per share in the quarter in which the deal is completed, and will start to contribute to earnings in 2005, Teuber said.

The acquisition bid is not entirely unexpected, according to James Governor, a London-based analyst with research firm RedMonk LLC. "It has been pretty clear that storage and records management are areas that will converge. However, this is still an ultra aggressive move from EMC," he said.

Growth by acquisition is a necessity if EMC is to do battle with IBM, according to Governor. "How do you compete with IBM? Bulk up!" he said.

EMC's recent efforts to bulk up have been held up by a legal challenge. The company is still in the process of acquiring storage management company Legato Systems, for which it offered stock worth $1.3 billion, but some of Legato's shareholders are resisting the deal.

The Documentum deal does not necessarily mean the end of EMC's acquisition spree but, "We are not actively hunting right now," Tucci said in the conference call.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.