EMC and IBM on the Move

EMC Corp. announced it is acquiring Infra Corp Pty Ltd., a provider of service desk solutions, and made an unsolicited bid for Iomega Corp., which rejected the offer. In other news, IBM Corp. stated it entered into an agreement to purchase Encentuate Inc., a provider of enterprise single sign-on software. EMC also announced software enhancements for its Centera content addressed storage (CAS) system that double the amount of digital objects it can archive.

Focal Points:

• EMC announced it is purchasing the privately-held Infra Corp., a global provider of IT Service Management (ITSM) service desk solutions. Infra's Web-based ITSM service desk, with its ability to manage the full life cycle of IT services, complements EMC's automated discovery, rich analytics, native dependency mapping and model-based approach, according to officials. Infra worldwide organization will be integrated into EMC's Resource Management Software Group (RMSG); however, R & D will remain in Australia. On the other hand, Iomega's Board of Directors rejected EMC's unsolicited $178.1 million buyout offer.
• EMC stated it is expanding Centera archiving capabilities to address the rapidly expanding need to store digital objects. CentraStar 4.0 – the new Centera operating system – doubles the amount of objects each disk drive in a system can hold, with each 500 gigabyte or 750 gigabyte drive now able to hold up to 25 million objects. In addition, the new version of the software, which is available as a free upgrade, improves the self-management and healing capabilities of Centera systems up to 25 percent faster than previous versions, EMC claimed. The new software also improves system flexibility and security, including a new capability that enables administrators to configure, segregate, and separately manage application, management and replication traffic for the optimal mix of performance and protection.  Administrators also acquire additional system logging and auditing capabilities, including the ability to custom configure password complexity rules for enhanced security. 
• IBM revealed it has purchased Encentuate, a privately-held company headquartered in Redwood City, CA with a development lab in Singapore. The company, which has been recognized as a leading supplier of enterprise single sign-on (SSO) software and employs a staff of 40, will become part of IBM's Tivoli Software division. Company officials stated that this acquisition strengthens IBM's security framework and completes the IBM single sign-on solution set.

Experton Group believes EMC will continue its acquisition strategy to achieve three objectives: achieve recognition as a one-stop information infrastructure management company, expand further into the SMB market and penetrate the consumer market with tailored information infrastructure management offerings. Executives should not assume the Iomega story is over; EMC sees the Iomega product lines as valuable components in its quest to penetrate the consumer and SMB markets. EMC will also continue to play to its existing strengths by improving its existing product lines so as to remain a leading provider of information infrastructure products and services. IT executives should understand EMC's solution strategies and road maps and determine how and where solutions such as those can be applied to enterprise challenges.

The IBM acquisition rounds out IBM's single sign-on software portfolio, making its Tivoli access and identity management software a complete suite, which is what users expect from IBM. IT executives that use Encentuate, Tivoli Access Manager, or Tivoli Federated Identity Manager or are looking for a SSO solution should determine if this purchase provides a significant enough rationale to consider the new Tivoli suite as one of its alternative solutions.