Veritas Completes Seagate Buy, Unveils Integration Roadmap

Computergram International, June 4, 1999

With the completion of its $2.7bn acquisition of Seagate Technology Inc's network and storage management group (NSMG), Veritas Software Corp is embarking on a staged plan for technological integration to be completed in a two-year timeframe, says vice-president of operations for Europe, Middle East and Asia, Phil Bousfield. He added that Veritas is ambitious, aiming to transition the Seagate products to a common code base with its own, as well as a common graphic user interface.

Veritas' activities can be divided into five business areas: back-up; disk management; file management; clustering; and storage resource management. Veritas says that Seagate can enhance its offerings in back-up and storage resource management, as well as complementing its Unix bent with its NT orientation. The managing director of Veritas' UK operations, Lindsey Armstrong, said the two companies are also complementary at the operational level because Seagate comes with a two-tier distribution model, whereas Veritas markets through direct sales and OEM agreements.

The new, enlarged Veritas will derive roughly 20% of its revenue from OEM, 40% from distribution and 40% from direct sales. Bousfield said that, while both Veritas and the NSMG segment of Seagate have a run-rate of around $200m in revenue, Veritas reckons they'll jointly achieve some $600m this year, given that their business is growing at 50% per annum right now.