ITGumbo: spicing IT up

It looks as though another Israeli company might be heading towards a major exit and, again, through IBM. Globes reported earlier this week that IBM is in advanced talks with Israeli enterprise data storage and deduplication solutions provider, Diligent Technologies Corp. The deal is estimated to be worth $200 million.

This news comes two months after IBM purchased its first Israeli start-up, XIV, another data storage solutions company, for $300 million. Here are some noteworthy facts and trends related to both these deals:

1. Diligent Technologies Corp. was spun off from EMC Israel in 2002. EMC is a huge competitor of IBM.
   
2. EMC Corp owns 20% of Diligent.
   
3. Data Storage pioneer, Moshe Yanai sits on Diligent's board. He is best known as a former EMC employee and technology storage legend. He also sat as XIV's Chairman.  

According to Diligent's website, the company is an innovator in enterprise-class disk-based data protection solutions,

"Focused on meeting the challenges of storing, protecting and managing the ever-explosive growth of backup data and the continued inefficiencies inherent in traditional methods."

Diligent's main product is the ProtecTIER platform which is one of the most "cost-effective and robust disk-based data protection solution on the market." It is powered by HyperFactor, and "eliminates redundant data and radically reduces the amount and cost of physical storage required" through its innovative platform which "provides a single instance store for backup and recovery, archive, and compliance applications."

If IBM does purchase Diligent, it will be interesting to see what response, if any, EMC will take and how IBM will integrate it.


Company Facts

Founded in 2002.

Doron Kempel, Chairman and CEO.

Ron Asher, VP of Engineering.

Products: ProtecTIER, VTF Open and VTF Mainframe. 

Website: www.diligent.com.


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About the author: Lisa Damast is the Membership Manager of ebizQ.net and currently resides in Israel. Any questions or inquiries regarding this blog or ebizQ membership services can be directed to her via email at ldamast (at) ebizq (dot) net. She can also be followed on Twitter, where she covers additional Israeli technology companies and Israel-related headlines and topics.