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When Symantec and Stellent announced Oct. 24 that they are teaming up to provide a records management agent for Symantec Enterprise Vault, one analyst commented that the move will be particularly welcome to customers that have integrations with MDY, a records management software developer.
“For customers using MDY [which was acquired by CA in June but had partnered with Symantec before CAs buy], it became questionable about how long that partnership would last, since Symantec and CA are competitors,” said Forrester Research analyst Barry Murphy. “So, now [customers] can choose Stellent rather than worrying about a possibly disintegrating relationship.”
Following the news and analyst comments, CA, however, has reaffirmed its commitment to customers who use MDY software and services.
“Weve been supporting customers and upgrading customers, and all of that work is continuing fully. We have no intention of changing,” said Galina Datskovsky, senior vice president for development for CAs storage management business unit and former CEO of MDY.
The company still works closely with Symantec, she noted, and updates its products whenever there is a new release of Symantec Enterprise Vault.
“After CAs acquisition, theres been no change to MDYs excellent support and assistance,” said Janet Inverso, senior project manager at Unisys, which has been using the product for the past two years. “Theres nothing to lead me to believe that they wont continue to do enhancements in the near future.”
CA now markets and supports the full suite of MDY products and services, which address nearly every aspect of records management. The company also plans to integrate MDYs records management technology with CA Message Manager, so customers can more effectively control e-mail and digital documents.
The MDY purchase followed another buy by CA in the storage management field, the 2005 acquisition of iLumin, a provider of enterprise message management and archiving software.
CA is keen to expand its presence in the records storage and management industry, and Datskovsky noted that the company expects that, as it extends further into the field, it will encounter technology from its competitors in many environments. In those cases, she believes it is better to play nice than try to shift customers to a CA-only environment.
“Our intent is to offer federated solutions, not require customers to rip and replace,” she said. “Were looking at our products to fit with compliance requirements and to fit across multiple types of infrastructures.”
Symantec is of a similar mindset, she added, partnering with multiple records management companies. “Like us, theyre consistent on their policy of trying to capitalize on as many customer relationships as possible,” she said.