* EMC acquires back-up and recovery specialist Danz
Almost lost in all the excitement at last week’s EMC industry analyst day was the company’s announcement of its acquisition of Danz, a well-regarded provider of back-up and recovery software to small and midsize businesses.
Backup and recovery for SMBs is a fragmented market. Many of the smallest companies still go with the software that comes baked into Windows, but many SMB owners understand the value of their data and prefer something a bit more robust. These folks can look to a large group of players, which includes traditional software vendors such as BakBone, Computer Associates, and Veritas, among others, and a new generation of appliance vendors, including IntraDyn.
Danz’s Retrospect back-up and recovery software is a fine, robust product for the Windows environments (I’ve used it in the past) that is available in Professional (workstation and desktop), Small Business Server, Single Server and Multi Server editions. Many optional modules are also available. Unfortunately however, its multiple management screens can be complicated – sometimes dauntingly so – for the fainthearted or for those among us who don’t like to read manuals. EMC will be well advised to simplify the user interface as quickly as possible, particularly if it hopes to reach down to the lowest part of the market.
What is most interesting about this acquisition is not so much the technology that was bought, but rather, what the purchase represents. And that is simply this: it is clear that EMC, once exclusively a provider of big iron to the enterprise, is now making a major move into the SMB market and is looking to become a ubiquitous supplier of storage technology to every level of business no matter what its size.
SMB software sales are done quite differently than software sale into larger companies: SMB software sells through a mix of distributors, resellers and retail outlets.
Buyers almost always have a choice about where to buy: generally, which route a company takes to acquire its software is a reflection of its IT capability. Thus, a distributor’s customer is a company that has a good understanding of its IT requirements, understands how to do whatever must be done, and expects no support from the point of sale. Resellers sell to customers who may need quite a bit more hand holding or who look to the reseller to provide integrated (and sometimes, specialized) solutions. Retailers sell simpler, shrink-wrapped products to customers who, except for the most unreasonable among them, don’t expect the retailer to provide any real support.
EMC has a good history of selling to the mid-market through channels, and its reputation as a channel supplier has improved enormously over the last few years. But it has had no experience and no capability when it came to addressing low-end markets. Until now.
The company’s recent history shows that it is good at remembering why it buys companies. Much of the corporate culture at both Legato and Documentum has remained intact, and the result is that those two acquisitions appear to be increasingly synergistic. By acquiring Danz, EMC is now a credible competitor at every level of the corporate backup and recovery market. Expect it to leverage its newfound expertise to address other areas of the SMB storage market as well.
