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HP moved to boost its e-discovery business late Monday with the acquisition of Australia’s Tower Software.
HP said the addition of document and records management software will position it to better compete in the fast-growing market for e-discovery and compliance solutions.
Tower’s electronic records management capabilities will be added to HP’s existing e-discovery and compliance offerings to meet information collection, retention, management and identification requirements created by the likes of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP), Sarbanes-Oxley and the Data Protection and Freedom of Information acts.
The two companies are already partners. Tower TRIM Context is integrated with the HP Integrated Archive Platform, creating a combined records management and compliance archiving solution.
HP said the combined company will help customers identify electronic business records from general business communication, collect the records in an archiving platform and preserve them for legal discovery and compliance needs.
Robin Purohit, HP’s vice president and general manager for Information Management, Software, said electronic records management “has moved from a back-office task to a business-critical function. The combination of the HP and Tower software portfolios is expected to be hugely beneficial to the legal and IT organizations of businesses all over the world.”
Tower also offers HP the ability to meet Microsoft SharePoint compliance and e-discovery needs. Content stored in SharePoint is coming under increasing scrutiny from lawyers and compliance officers involved in legal discovery, corporate governance and regulatory compliance, HP said.
Tower has been in business for 22 years and boasts about 1,000 customers and 780,000 users in 32 countries.
Shareholders representing more than 90 percent of Tower shares have said they will accept HP’s offer in the absence of a higher third-party offer. The deal is expected to close later this quarter.
