StorageTek To OEM, Resell IXOS ECM Software

In a move similar to the HDS/IXOS ECM partnership unveiled last week, this agreement calls for StorageTek to OEM e-mail archival software from IXOS. The company also plans to resell the entire IXOS line of ECM software, StorageTek officials said.

The ECM space has of late become influenced by the storage industry. In addition to StorageTek's and HDS's reseller arrangements with IXOS, other recent events include EMC's acquisition of both Documentum and Legato, as well as new efforts by IBM to beef up the content-management capabilities of a variety of its middleware applications including Tivoli Storage Manager.

StorageTek is OEMing the IXOS-eCONserver for Exchange and the IXOS-eCONserver for Lotus, and will sell them as part of StorageTek's Email Xcelerator series of solutions, said Roger Good, director of global services for StorageTek.

The company also plans to resell the IXOS-eCONserver Solution Suite, a set of applications which manages all documents and data across an enterprise.

The IXOS applications are applicable to a wide range of regulatory compliance issues, company officials said.

StorageTek plan to release a number of applications based on technology OEMed from IXOS, including versions with and without compliance-related capabilities, said Good.

Email ArchiveMaster is a hardware and software solution which migrates e-mails and attachments to less expensive media, including media suitable for compliance purposes. A separate version of Email ArchiveMaster includes e-mail search and retrieve capabilities. Email AuditMaster helps regulated companies comply with e-mail review, retention and classification.

StorageTek decided to work with IXOS because of that vendor's scalability, from double-wide character support for Asian languages to the ability to treat multiple servers across multiple continents as a single system, Good said.

IXOS also has one of the broadest ranges of ECM products which work across multiple platforms with a common architecture, including modules for CRM, ERP and other applications, said Good.

Content management is becoming inextricably linked with storage, he said.

"Point solution for point products only increases complexity," he said. "A point product for content management doesn't simplify the customer environment. StorageTek believes that with our disk and WORM (write once, read many) tape, we can address the content spectrum while helping the customer keep its current IT environment."

StorageTek decided to use its own brand for the e-mail software, but only resell the rest, because e-mail management has become one of a corporation's most immediate needs, said Good. "If you look at what is the customer's main pain point, e-mail is the one most people understand the best," he said.

The company said solution providers will be able to resell both the StorageTek-branded and IXOS-branded applications, with StorageTek and IXOS handling the deployment and other services, Good said. He expects StorageTek to gradually make those services available through channel partners over time.

StorageTek is making the e-mail applications available now and expects to start reselling the other IXOS applications in the first quarter of next year, said Good.