Marking the company's 15th software acquisition since the beginning of 2000, EMC announced the purchase of Dantz Development. Dantz produces backup and recovery software for small-to-midsized businesses. EMC hopes the acquisition will better enable the company to provide information lifecycle management (ILM) software to that market segment. "While the majority of EMC's offerings to date have been targeted at the enterprise and commercial markets, Dantz represents EMC's first major software entry with purpose-built products targeted specifically to the needs of small-to-midsized business customers," said Dave DeWalt, executive vice president of EMC Software Group. "Dantz helps EMC methodically enter the small-to-midsize software market and hit the ground running with an extremely strong and well-regarded product platform, wide-reaching and deep channels to market, and synergistic connection points with EMC's current technology and channel partnerships."
Dantz's primary product is the Retrospect family of backup software for the Windows and Macintosh platforms. The Retrospect family includes software for both desktop servers and desktop systems. EMC plans to combine Dantz's technology with its disk-based backup and recovery systems to provide customers with a "Recovery Management" solution.
Completed on October 8, 2004, the acquisition is a cash transaction valued at less than $50 million, according to EMC. Dantz will continue to operate from its headquarters in Walnut Creek, California.