Plasmon Pads Archiving Portfolio

Data archiving specialist Plasmon acquired rival Raidtec for about $6 million in cash to strengthen its storage networking portfolio.

Cambridge, U.K.-based Plasmon makes optical drives, media and libraries for storing data as alternatives to magneto optical (MO) DVD storage, and tape or disk-based back-up systems.

The company’s sweet spot is selling blue laser-based optical drives and media to government agencies, financial services and healthcare organizations who prefer to use optical storage to record medical images, such as X-rays.

Raidtec, based in Cork, Ireland, makes storage area network (SAN) and network-attached storage (NAS) storage networking hardware based on fibre channel , SCSI
and SATA technologies.

Buying Raidtec will help Plasmon build out its product stack for an integrated network attached archive solution, according to Plasmon CEO Nigel Street.

“Over the last 15 months we have been engaged with Raidtec to build a next-generation product that bundles their storage networking and RAID technologies with Plasmon libraries,” Street said in a statement. “Acquiring Raidtec is the next logical step in our relationship…”

Analysts approved. IDC Group Vice President for Storage Hardware John MaCarthur said in a statement the NAS and RAID technology from Raidtec complements Plasmon’s optical and automation technology.

Enterprise Storage Group Analyst Peter Gerr said the buy will give Plasmon new channels to sell through — Raidtec products are sold in 45 countries — and will help Plasmon fill more of an organization’s information life cycle and archiving requirements while expanding its presence in important markets like healthcare.

On the strength of the purchase, Plasmon said it has already signed contracts with major medical imaging customers to supply archival storage products this year.

Plasmon will continue to market and support existing Raidtec products, and will introduce new products currently under development. Also, Raidtec products will continue to be sold through existing channels under the Raidtec brand.