Briefs: November 29, 2004

MERISEL TAPS NEW PRESIDENT, CEO IN WAKE OF INVESTIGATION

D&H Services, a Virginia-based company unrelated to D&H Distributing, purchased Merisel's software licensing business for an undetermined amount. The investigation is focusing on Jenson's relationship with D&H Services and its principals and whether the terms of the transaction were fair to Merisel shareholders.

Merisel said it may consider a recision of the D&H Services sale and other legal options to recover any damages suffered by the company.

IBM ENTERS LIFE INSURANCE SOLUTIONS FRAY
IBM agreed to acquire Liberty Insurance Services, the U.S. business process services and solutions operations of RBC Insurance. Financial terms of the deal, expected to close by Dec. 31, were not disclosed. In addition, IBM has agreed to perform certain business processes for RBC Insurance's U.S. operations, including contact center management, policy administration, claims management and payment receipt and reconciliation.

Following the acquisition, about 700 Liberty Insurance Services employees will become part of a new subsidiary of IBM. The unit will focus on delivering life insurance and annuity processing and administration services integrated with consulting and business optimization strategies aimed at the life insurance industry.

HP PLANS LAYOFFS
Hewlett-Packard said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that it is budgeting about $200 million in expenses for workforce reductions for the first half of its fiscal 2005.

HP said the cuts would be spread across its various business units but declined to say how many jobs would be lost.

In the SEC filing, HP said the layoffs will have a net impact of roughly 4 cents per share in the first half of fiscal 2005.

ARROW ENTERPRISE STORAGE TAKES CROSSWALK
The Enterprise Storage Solutions division of Arrow Electronics signed a distribution agreement to carry midmarket storage solutions from Crosswalk, a startup that launched in October. Crosswalk's initial offering is Crosswalk Storage Manager, which aims to help end users with five to 200 servers improve application performance and boost the efficiency of their storage operations, according to Lance Sedlak, director of marketing for Arrow Enterprise Storage Solutions.

"The Storage Manager solution fits a need in markets aligned with our partners' customers, and they will be eager to know more about a new product that will serve their yet-unmet storage needs," Sedlak said in a statement.

Crosswalk, founded by chairman and CEO Jack McDonnell, hopes to attract storage-focused solution providers as well as IBM and Hewlett-Packard partners, said John LoPorto, vice president of sales at Crosswalk.

IBM, HP JUMP ON LTO-3 TRAIN
IBM and Hewlett-Packard plan to start shipping LTO-3 tape drives next month, following Certance's recent introduction of the same type of drives.

The three vendors originally worked together to develop the LTO tape drive specifications in 1997. LTO-3 is the third generation of the drives.

Charlie Andrews, director of product marketing for tape storage at IBM, said his company plans to start shipping the stand-alone SCSI 3580, a retail version of the LTO-3 drive with its own external case and power supply, on Dec. 17.

SCSI OEM LTO-3 drives, aimed at OEMs of tape libraries, are expected to become available in December, followed by Fibre Channel versions in the first quarter of 2005, Andrews said.

An HP spokesperson said HP plans to unveil internal and external versions of its LTO-3 tape drives in a couple of weeks, with general availability planned for Dec. 13. OEM versions for libraries will follow later.

INTRADYN ADDS FUEL TO ROCKETVAULT DATA BACKUP
Intradyn plans to add the ability to do unattended protection of Microsoft Exchange and SQL data to its RocketVault data backup and archiving appliance for small and midsize companies.

Intradyn is integrating the Exchange and SQL backup capabilities of Back Again software, which the company acquired from Computer Data Strategies in March, to offer a complete appliance for businesses with one to 500 users, said CEO Gary Doan.

The software allows data from Exchange and SQL to be backed up to the RocketVault appliance for moving off-site over the Internet, Doan said. Copying of the data off-site can be done on a continuous basis, or incremental changes to a data set can be moved at set times. The entire data set can also be backed up offline, he said.

The software also allows the restoration of the entire e-mail store, a single mailbox or a single message, Doan said.

Also new with RocketVault is the HotStart wizard, which allows the appliance to be installed in just a few minutes, Doan said.