Quest Software Completes Acquisition of BakBone

IT management specialist Quest Software announced the completion of
its acquisition of BakBone Software Inc., a provider of data protection
software headquartered in San Diego, Calif. The company said the
acquisition gives Quest additional technologies to offer data
protection across heterogeneous physical, virtual and application-level
environments, enabling organizations to support expanding data
protection needs while simplifying data protection processes. BakBone
shareholders received $0.33 per common share and $1.29 per preferred
share, according to a Quest release.

BakBone offers four products under the NetVault brand that provide
continuous data protection, deduplication, replication, and disk-based
and tape backup. Quest will market and sell the BakBone solutions,
rebranded as Quest NetVault, as both a suite and individually available
solutions. The NetVault platform is designed to help organizations
reduce the amount of data required for backups while gaining
scalability and improving ease of use for administrators.

“Continuous data protection is a major challenge for all organizations,
as the sheer volume of data being generated continues to grow,” said
Doug Garn, CEO and president of Quest Software. “Adding BakBone
technologies to our existing portfolio of data protection products
enables Quest to deliver an integrated, best-of-breed set of solutions
appropriate for all organizations – from small businesses to large
enterprises. Our customers will reap the benefits, as we give them
comprehensive data protection coverage at a lower total cost of
ownership, and with the added bonus of world-class customer support.”

The acquisition was conducted by way of a statutory plan of arrangement
under the Canada Business Corporations Act and was approved by
BakBone’s shareholders and the Court of Queen’s Bench of Alberta. Quest
said it would unveil its strategic roadmap for the future of the
BakBone solution set and its complementary data protection solutions by
the end of the first quarter of 2011.

“The BakBone acquisition complements Quest Software’s growing storage
management portfolio, which includes products such as vRanger and
LiteSpeed,” said Lauren Whitehouse, senior analyst at IT research firm
Enterprise Strategy Group. “BakBone’s technology, such as
deduplication, tape media management, and backup and replication
support for physical systems will enhance Quest’s solutions, providing
Quest a feature ‘leap frog’ to be competitive in heterogeneous
environments.”