HP To Buy Aussie Doc And Records Management Company

Hewlett-Packard has signed an agreement with Tower Software to acquire the document and records management company. HP, of Palo Alto, Calif., is buying Canberra, Australia-based Tower in a move to expand its e-discovery and compliance business, said Robin Purohit, vice president and general manager of HP's information management software business.

Tower's primary product, TRIM Context, is an enterprise content management solution that supports retentions schedules for most types of content in order to help manage business-critical information according to a user's company policies. It supports the ability to prove the authenticity of the information by capturing all related metadata and applying management rules throughout the lifecycle of the data.

Assuming the acquisition closes as expected during the second quarter, HP plans to integrate TRIM Context into its information management software business along with HP's Integrated Archive Platform, Purohit said.

Integrated Archive Platform, formerly known as the HP Reference Information Storage System, or RISS, combines HP's server and grid storage technology and native content indexing, search, and policy management software into a single system for building an e-discovery platform. It is used for archiving of e-mails and any other unstructured content, Purohit said. TRIM Context will add records management to Integrated Archive Platform, he said.

Tower has over 1,000 customers worldwide, but is best-known in Australia, Purohit said. Customers of the company are primarily in the public sector. "We will also expand it into the private sector, but our first priority will be public sector resellers," he said.

As a result, HP will first take the new offering to its larger systems integrators such as EDS, Plano, Texas, and BearingPoint, of McLean, Va. HP will also take the solution to its midmarket solution providers, Purohit said. "We believe a large number of HP resellers will be interested in it," he said.

Integrated Archive Platform was also the result of an acquisition when HP acquired Persist Technologies in late 2003.

HP declined to discuss the value of the Tower acquisition, as it is a private deal, other than to say that it making an offer to acquire all Tower shares at $3.39 (Aus.) per share.