Dell announced their acquisition of AppAssure today, a software based enterprise backup solution for physical, virtual and cloud infrastructures. They feature both local (DAS, SAN, remote disk) and cloud based backup, replication and recovery.
This further supplants the idea of Dell as being a hardware company and continues them on their path to a more solutions and services focus. As some colleagues in the field and I were just talking (@plankers, @tscalzott) that hardware (especially storage/server/network) are becoming ubiquitous, the real value will be in features and software innovations.
Here’s the press release from Dell:
Dell Acquires AppAssure
· AppAssure’s award-winning technology delivers reliable application recovery from customers’ servers to their datacenter and their cloud.
· AppAssure’s technology enhances Dell’s storage and software portfolios, enabling it to offer backup and recovery software that protects a company’s entire application infrastructure.
· AppAssure is the first software acquisition by Dell since the formation of its software group.
ROUND ROCK, Texas, Feb. 24, 2012 – Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) today announced it has acquired AppAssure, a global leader in complete application protection for virtual, physical and cloud infrastructures. The acquisition of AppAssure, the nation’s fastest-growing backup software technology company, further extends Dell’s comprehensive storage and software strategy.
Dell has taken significant steps over the past three years to expand its storage portfolio to offer customers a complete range of world-class storage products and solutions. AppAssure’s market leading backup solutions enhance Dell’s existing storage capabilities by providing customers confidence that their applications and data are fully protected.
Dell provides customers with solutions that help manage the growing complexity in IT and the rapid explosion in data. Today, Dell offers a full portfolio of Storage Area Network and Network Attached Storage solutions, based on its Fluid Data architecture, and is complementing these offerings with security, data compression and backup and restore capabilities. Dell simplifies technology to make storage products more accessible to businesses of all sizes.
AppAssure Leadership
AppAssure recently reported 194 percent revenue growth year-over-year in 2011 and 19 consecutive quarters of growth and Inc. Magazine has ranked AppAssure as the nation’s fastest-growing backup and replication software company.
AppAssure’s award-winning technology guarantees reliable application recovery from customers’ servers to their datacenter and their cloud. AppAssure goes beyond simply protecting data, to protecting entire applications enabling service providers and enterprises to adopt a cloud model to deliver fast, reliable and secure data protection. AppAssure delivers the industry’s fastest backup and recovery of virtual servers, including VMware, Hyper-V and XenServer, as well as physical servers.
AppAssure was founded in 2006 and is headquartered in Reston, Va. Bain Capital Ventures is the lead institutional investor in AppAssure and the remainder of the company is employee-owned. Dell plans to keep AppAssure’s approximately 230 employees and will
continue to invest in additional engineering and sales capability to grow this business. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Quotes
“AppAssure’s unique architecture delivers innovative cloud-enabled backup and replication solutions that meet the challenges of protecting the explosive growth of data in both virtual and physical environments,” said Brad Anderson, president, Enterprise Solutions Group, Dell. “At a practical level, AppAssure enables Dell customers to seamlessly move and replicate data across our existing platforms — from an EqualLogic array in a remote office to a Compellent array at a data recovery site.”
“Dell’s acquisition of AppAssure is a strategic industry move given its relentless focus on providing innovative solutions to protect customers’ applications and data in cloud, virtual and physical environments,” said Najaf Husain, president and CEO, AppAssure. “Combining Dell’s global brand, scale, reach and existing storage portfolio with our innovative technology provides customers with world-class data protection and recovery capabilities in their virtual, physical and cloud environments.”
“AppAssure’s speed and ease of use are great, and the continuous backup makes recovery go really smoothly,” said Dave Buzzell, CIO of Sedona Group. “Our IT environment is constantly changing, and only AppAssure has been able to keep up with it. We estimate that we can keep three years of continuous backups just due to AppAssure’s true global deduplication and compression technology. That’s amazing.“
About AppAssure
AppAssure, the No. 1 backup for VM, physical and cloud environments, is a global leader in complete server, application and data protection. The company provides a unified and integrated backup and replication software that is engineered on innovative and groundbreaking technologies which offer near-zero recovery time, 100% recoverability assurance, and cross-platform virtual and physical server recovery (P2V, V2V, V2P or P2P). Building on a history of innovation and multiple industry firsts, AppAssure continues to set the standard in virtual and physical server data protection.
About Dell
Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) listens to customers and delivers worldwide innovative technology, business solutions and services they trust and value. For more information, visit www.dell.com.