Connected Expands Into New Storage Areas

Desktop backup specialist Connected Corp. will expand into e-mail archiving and server backups by early next year, officials said today.

Both product expansions will come through acquisitions, said Bob Brennan, Connecteds CEO and chairman, in Framingham, Mass. For an initial public offering in 2005, "were in the midst of financing the company now," he said.

To offer users e-mail archiving, Connected is purchasing U.K.-based Rrchive-it.com Ltd., worth in "the low eight figures," Brennan said. Rchive-its MailStore 2.1 is used by organization such as the London Underground. "We looked at everybody in the space and felt that they had the best combination of technology [and] price," he said.

Connected will focus on improving the Java-based products scalability, such as porting it to operating systems beyond Windows, Brennan said. It will be relaunched as a 3.0 version; the full product name will be announced soon.

In addition, server backup has long been high on the wish list of Connecteds customers, he said. "Were actively considering combinations. Theres no way we could build it all ourselves," Brennan said.

"Were not entering the market to compete against [Veritas Software Corp.] or [Computer Associates International Inc.] on a big-box basis," he said. Instead, Connected will focus on servers that arent currently being backed up, such as in small companies or in large companies departmental and remote offices.

Connected is also building an upgrade for its current product, DataProtector/PC 7.1. The new 7.5 version, available early next year, will add SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) connections, will have a simpler log-in process, and will include an API so resellers and service providers can easily rebrand it, officials said.

Resource Library: