Tower Software's "litigationware" works seamlessly with HP archives and Microsoft SharePoint.
Hewlett-Packard announced March 31 that it will acquire privately held
enterprise content management software maker Tower Software in a cash
transaction.
The deal will give HP all the outstanding shares of
the company in exchange for $3.39 (Aus.) per share. No other financial details
were made available.
Tower, based in Canberra, Australia, but fielding about 240 employees around the world,
was established in 1985 as a records management company dealing mostly with
government offices and agencies, CEO
Martin Harwood told eWEEK.
The company's signature Tower Trim Context software has become a widely used
electronic discovery and compliance suite, and it already is integrated with
HP's archiving hardware and software.
Electronic records management software has become a strategic tool for
organizations due to increasing national and regional rules and regulations,
such as the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and the
Data Protection and Freedom of Information Acts.
A major advantage of Trim Context for HP is that it works seamlessly with
Microsoft's SharePoint collaboration software.
"With this acquisition, we feel very well-positioned to address the
emerging e-discovery software market," Robin Purohit, vice president and
general manager of Information Management for Software at HP, told a conference
call of reporters and analysts.
IDC estimates the e-discovery or litigation software
market as being about $3.36 billion in 2008, growing at about 23 percent per
year, while Forrester estimates the market to be over $5 billion and also
growing at more than 20 percent, Purohit said.
HP is also seeing "tremendous shakeup" in the traditional content
management market, he said, as Microsoft's SharePoint is being used "more
extensively within the enterprise" for document collaboration.
"While traditional e-discovery is focused on e-mail and messaging, we
think that Microsoft SharePoint is the next big opportunity for e-discovery and
compliance," Purohit said.
SharePoint, a relatively new Microsoft product, is gaining market share by
leaps and bounds, according to Enterprise Strategy Group analyst Brian
Babineau.
"It [SharePoint] is replacing general-purpose network drives as group or
departmental repository ... no more 'Z' drives where no one can find
anything," Babineau told eWEEK.
HP customers now will be able to buy Tower's Trim Context to manage records and
store the Tower repository on HP's IAP (Integrated Archive Platform), Babineau
said.
"This is a very smart move [for HP]," Babineau said. "The Tower
software provides structure to unstructured data, and it's organized,
Web-enabled and searchable."
When the deal is complete later in 2008most likely before JulyHP and Tower
will compete directly against Iron Mountain, CA (with its MDY product), and EMC (with
Documentum) in this sector, Babineau said.