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Fujitsu
Softek Acquires Vixel's SAN Visualization IP and Team
Sunnyvale, Calif. - April 8,
2002 - Fujitsu Software Technology Corporation (Fujitsu Softek),
a leading provider of storage management software, today
announced an agreement to acquire Vixel's SAN Management
software business. Under the terms of the agreement, Fujitsu
Softek has purchased all of Vixel's SAN Management technology,
intellectual property and key development team resources for
SAN InSite™.
On the heels of Fujitsu
Softek's acquisition of Datacore's virtualization source code,
Fujitsu Softek now owns the IP for its complete suite of
storage software products and is the first to supply
comprehensive data storage and service level management
solutions that are hardware-vendor and OS-platform
independent. This agreement allows Fujitsu Softek to continue
to satisfy enterprises' strong demand for comprehensive
support and innovative enhancements to continue delivering on
its promise to simplify and optimize the storage environment
in the areas of business continuance; SAN implementation and
management; service level management; and storage resource
management. The company plans to extend its visualization
technology into future products, as well as into its existing
storage management offerings to those customers who purchase
multiple products.
"Through this
acquisition, Fujitsu Softek further demonstrates its
commitment to its stated strategy of deploying the first
complete vendor-independent, end-to-end storage management
software solution, through internal development or acquisition
of best-of-breed technologies," said Fujitsu Softek
President and Chief Executive Officer Steven F.X. Murphy.
"By acquiring the SAN InSite technology with the founding
development team, Fujitsu Softek enhances its SAN management
development capabilities already recognized in the industry.
By adding multi-vendor SAN Network Management, we have secured
one of the last foundation building blocks we need to complete
our integrated Storage Resource Management vision, and are the
first-to-market with such a robust solution."
According to Enterprise
Storage Group's model for a comprehensive storage software
solution, SAN fabric management is a "must have", in
addition to virtualization, storage management and data
management for building a comprehensive, policy-based
Enterprise Storage Management solution. Softek SANView,
launched September 2001, offers customers greater visibility
into its SAN fabric and actual network configuration. By
owning the code, Fujitsu Softek can leverage its
vendor-independence to further relationships with SAN switch
vendors, such as Brocade and McData, and now offer its
customers greater control over its APIs and network through
its switches.
Softek SANView is for
enterprises with an existing SAN or with plans to implement a
SAN who need to visualize, monitor and manage their SAN.
Softek SANView, which is SAN fabric management software,
provides the best view and most information for proactively
monitoring and managing SAN performance by automatically
discovering the devices and drawing the topology of a
customer's SAN. It provides the best topology view and
greatest level of device detail of products in its class. The
Softek SANView product optimizes a SAN administrator's time by
locating and mapping the physical connections between SAN
components and monitoring their status and performance. This
allows the administrator to easily identify faulty devices or
connections so that problems are resolved quickly.
Additionally, the Softek SANView product takes a proactive
approach to SAN management in that the product triggers e-mail
alerts to potential problems based on user defined thresholds.
"We've built a
world-class SAN management software product and are delighted
that our OEM partner, Fujitsu Softek, has now taken the extra
step to acquire it as a key element of their storage software
business," said Jim McCluney, president and CEO of Vixel.
"Armed with our enhanced cash position and lower
operating expenses, we are focusing our development resources
on effectively positioning ourselves in the embedded storage
switch market."
Fujitsu Softek will provide
customer maintenance support for Vixel's existing SAN InSite
customer base and allow Vixel to retain rights to the software
to service existing customers. Completion of the transaction
is expected to occur in April 2002.
About Fujitsu Software
Technology Corporation (Fujitsu Softek)
Fujitsu Softek provides storage management software that helps
customers ensure high availability of business-critical data.
It simplifies and optimizes data storage resources while
reducing the risks associated with managing complex storage
infrastructures. One of the world's leading storage management
software companies, Fujitsu Softek offers vendor- and
platform-independent solutions in storage virtualization, SAN
management, storage resource management, data migration,
replication, backup, disaster recovery/business continuance
and quality of service monitoring. Based in Sunnyvale, Calif.,
Fujitsu Softek is backed by the financial strength of Fujitsu
Limited. |
