Veritas buys Seagate Software

Veritas Software is to buy Seagate Software, a subsidiary of the hard disk manufacturer, for $1.6bn.

The share-only deal will consolidate the market for storage software, with Veritas trying to marry its Unix expertise to Seagate's strength in software for Windows NT and Novell NetWare environments.

Commenting on the deal, Veritas CEO, Mark Leslie, said: "The merger will form a company with an unprecedented range of products and immediate market leadership in four strategic storage management software areas: backup and recovery, core operating system-level storage, storage resource management and high availability."

Mike Mager, research analyst at the Butler Group, said: "This deal makes for an excellent fit. It's an excellent strategy move for Veritas because it has traditionally been strong at the high-end, and with Seagate Software it inherits a very important relationship with Microsoft for Windows NT and Windows 98."

Mager said parent company, Seagate Technology, also stands to benefit as it has already agreed an OEM (original equipment manufacturer) relationship with the new entity.

Viewers can visit Silicon.com's Storage Channel to see 'SAN Seekers', the interview where Veritas CEO, Mark Leslie talks to Silicon.com's chief reporter, Julian Goldsmith, about the road ahead for Veritas and the promise of storage area networks.