EMC to Buy Network Intelligence for $175 Million

Storage giant EMC announced Sept. 18 that it has agreed to purchase Network Intelligence for $175 million, and it has also completed its $2.1 billion acquisition of RSA Security.

Hopkinton, Mass.-based EMC, now the sixth largest software company in the world, has been on a buying spree lately.

In addition to RSA and Network Intelligence, the company has picked up Interlink Group, nLayers, and ProActivity in just the past few months.

Although some analysts have questioned the value of the $2.1 billion—$28-per-share—purchase of RSA, the move was expected to help EMC by offering better security for its storage solutions.

The RSA board on Sept. 14 gave it final approval for the acquisition. The new EMC security division will continue under the RSA name. Art Coviello, the former RSA CEO, will head the division. Coviello is now the executive vice president at EMC and president of RSA, and he will report directly to EMC Chairman Joe Tucci.

The purchase of Network Intelligence, which will also add to a new security information section within EMC, is expected to be complete by the end of the Sept. 18 business day, according to EMC officials.

In addition to the finalization of the two acquisitions, EMC said that it begun to offer EMC Infoscape software and related EMC Information Management Strategy Service.

The new software solution will now allow users to “search all corporate information in file systems, automatically classify information based on business value, manage the retention of unstructured information for compliance and facilitate policy-based and automated data migration across a tiered storage infrastructure,” EMC officials said.

EMC’s Information Management Strategy Service is a new consulting program through EMC’s Global Services. The service will give users advice on policies, best practices and procedures.

The EMC Infoscape software will be available starting in October 2006. The base model is $125,000 and the capacity licensing starts at $9,000 per terabyte. The strategy service is available immediately, with prices based on a specific arrangement with EMC.

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