Quantum, ADIC Complete Merger

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Quantum completed its $770 million acquisition of ADIC late Tuesday, creating what the company claims is the “largest independent” backup, recovery and archiving company, with $1.2 billion in sales.

Quantum said it expects to save $75 million to $80 million in synergies in the deal, higher than the $45 million it initially estimated, as it eliminates redundancies in internal programs, processes, employee positions and facilities, leverages higher manufacturing volumes to reduce supply chain costs, and streamlines procurement processes. Financing costs of the deal will be $50 million annually.

Customers will likely see little in the way of changes initially, with plans for integrated disk-based backup products by the end of the year.

Greg Schulz, founder and senior analyst at StorageIO, said that “unlike some of the other recent and announced merger/acquisitions where technology and customer overlap have been the name of the game, ADIC/Quantum have many synergies with good potential upside, thus making for a good combination. … So it makes perfect sense that the companies can maintain their current lines, fine-tuning as needed, and then get on with cross-leveraging what each other has been working on and experience with disk-based storage.”

Schulz said it will be interesting to see how the combined company can leverage joint technologies, such as ADIC’s acquisition of Rocksoft’s de-duplication technology.

“This begs the question of whether we will see the combined company push even further into the disk-based data protection space at the enterprise, SMB as well as low-end market spaces moving forward,” Schultz said.

Quantum said it will offer more details in the next 30-45 days, but offered some initial product details.

In the tape automation segment, Quantum said it “will continue to support all current product platforms of both companies and will continue to define roadmaps as part of the integration process.” The combined automation portfolio “will carry forward using the strengths of each platform to meet the diverse needs of our customers.”

OEM partners such as HP and IBM use the platforms to address different markets, Quantum said, so “each platform will continue to evolve with drive integrations and feature enhancements along typical product lifecycles.”

“We believe that our combined automation portfolio is very complementary, with very little overlap,” the company told Enterprise Storage Forum in a statement.

Quantum said it will continue to meet OEM and branded commitments for the i500 and PX510 tape systems in the midrange and the i2000 and PX720 systems for the enterprise. In branded channels, Quantum plans to lead with the i500 and i2000 and associated iLayer management benefits for midrange and enterprise customers.

“We will leverage the PX510 and PX720 for customers that have already standardized on these platforms, and to provide the greatest breadth of options to customers considering Quantum for new tape automation solutions,” the company said. “At the low end, we will lead with the SuperLoader 3 and the PX502/PX506 and target FastStor and the Scalar 24 to their existing customers.”

In disk-based backup, Quantum said, “as a combined company we will capitalize on the scale and synergies in this area, and we expect to have our first integrated products to market by the end of the calendar year. Quantum will continue to support all current product platforms of both companies and will continue to define roadmaps as part of the integration process.”

Quantum’s DX3000 and DX5000 midrange disk appliances “are industry-leading solutions for the SMB, workgroup and distributed environments,” the company said. In enterprise applications, the DX30 and DX100 systems “provide key scalability and performance advantages for large-scale data sets, while the Pathlight VX 650 offers the most advanced integration of disk and tape storage in a single virtual library solution. Each platform will continue to evolve with feature enhancements along typical product lifecycles.”

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Paul Shread
Paul Shread
eSecurity Editor Paul Shread has covered nearly every aspect of enterprise technology in his 20+ years in IT journalism, including an award-winning series on software-defined data centers. He wrote a column on small business technology for Time.com, and covered financial markets for 10 years, from the dot-com boom and bust to the 2007-2009 financial crisis. He holds a market analyst certification.

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