Adaptec To Expand Channel Presence With One Snappy Sale

Adaptec's move last week to acquire Snap Appliance in a $100 million deal is expected to boost Adaptec's channel presence in a big way, executives of both companies and solution providers said.

Once the deal closes, Milpitas, Calif.-based Adaptec will become the No. 1 volume seller of NAS appliances, nearly all of which go through the channel, while keeping its market-share lead in the storage component space, said Mark Pollard, Snap's vice president of marketing and business development.

ADAPTEC'S SPENDING SPREE Recent Adaptec acquistions: >> Eurologic Systems >>  ICP vortex >>  Tricord Systems >>  Part of IBM's RAID controller business >>  Snap Appliance (pending)

The deal is expected to put Adaptec in the unique position of manufacturing a broad range of storage products, from semiconductors to RAID boards to NAS, SAN and direct-attach arrays, which should help solution providers target numerous opportunities, Pollard said.

"The channel tells us to reduce the number of partners they have," he said. "They want to spend more time with partners, and focus on them. We can now combine resources and marketing dollars."

Brad Wenzel, president and CEO of Wenzel Data, a Stillwater, Minn.-based Adaptec partner that has also sold Snap NAS appliances, called the acquisition a good move that will help both companies.

"Adaptec is a well-known company," Wenzel said. "They'll get the advantage of having a full line of RAID, NAS and iSCSI products."

In the last year and a half, Adaptec has been on quite a spending spree aimed at making the company, traditionally known mainly for RAID host-bus adapters and the chips on which such adapters are based, into a full-line storage provider. Recent acquisitions include Eurologic Systems, a Dublin, Ireland-based developer of SCSI, iSCSI and Fibre Channel arrays; ICP vortex, a Neckarsulm, Germany-based developer of RAID protection for SCSI, Serial ATA and Fibre Channel arrays; and NAS vendor Tricord Systems, Minneapolis.

The latest deal will take Adaptec into a highly competitive market with a host of powerful potential competitors, including NAS powerhouses Network Appliance and EMC. Another potential rival is Microsoft, whose Windows Storage Server operating system for NAS appliances competes directly against Snap's Linux-based proprietary GuardianOS platform.

If the deal closes, Snap is expected to be known as Snap Appliance, a division of Adaptec. Eric Kelly, currently Snap CEO, is expected to manage the new division and report directly to Bob Stephens, president and CEO of Adaptec.